Microsoft FlowEasy Desktop Integration

Dan ToomeyMexia Consulting

Enabling the Digital Enterprise

Who am I?• Senior Consultant / Integration Architect• MCT, MCPD, MCTS BizTalk & Azure• Pluralsight Author• www.mindovermessaging.com• @daniel2me

Acknowledgements

Charles LamannaPrincipal Group Engineering Manager, Microsoft

@clamanna

What is Microsoft Flow?

Microsoft Flow helps non-developers work smarter by automating workflows across apps

and services

Get notifications Synchronize files Collect data Automate approvals

Automate advanced scenarios with multiple steps,

branching conditions, and more

Click-to-code for integrating the systems you’re already using… even custom APIs.

New services being added every week!https://flow.microsoft.com/manage/connections/available

Get started quickly with hundreds useful templates

• Templates focus on the services involved (and not the backing workflow)

• Community can publish templates for all Flow users

• Per company / organization templates later this year

Simple explanation + landing page for templates

Easily share templates via social media or email with your colleagues or friends

See how much this template has been

used and who published it

Detailed description of what the template does and needs

Select Use this template to sign

up/sign in and configure the

template

Simple explanation + landing page for templates

Sending an Exchange email when a new file is added in Dropbox

Authenticate to your O365 account.

Build email Subject and Body

Choose to include properties from previous step (Dropbox file) to improve relevance

Specify Send To email address and additional properties (optional): From, CC, BCC and Importance

Connected to johnsharp@contoso.com

Authenticate to your Dropbox account.

Select folder to monitor

PowerApps

Build your own flow from scratch

See detailed inputs / outputs for each step

Save visual representation as building / creation time

Debug any flow if needed

Same list of connections is shared between PowerApps and Flow so you only have to sign in once

If your password changes or you revoke the application access you can come here to sign-in again and fix it

Delete connections if you no longer want Flow and PowerApps to be able to access that data

Consolidated list of all connectors

Why are we talking about Flow?

• Integration is a problem that spans the enterprise

• Limited resources / time for central Integration specialists; unmet need for office workers

• Flow enables “self-service” for simple integrations

Why are we talking about Flow?

Sophistication

Volu

me

Flow focus:Business Users & Specialists

BizTalk & Logic Apps focus:IT Pro / Developers

Who is the audience for Flow?

Growing Up

Grow-Up Story from Flow• Flow is good for simple integrations and

empowering users to do integrations without going through devs + IT

• However, sometimes IT / devs need to take over when the Flow gets too advanced or becomes business-critical

• Any Flow can be converted to a Logic App (will be one-click later this year)

demo

Use Cases

• Enriching or pushing data to existing store; e.g.• take customer information from SalesForce / CRM and add it to a SharePoint list

• Approval workflows for common administrative tasks; e.g.• resume screening; vacation requests; etc.

• Capturing data for better visualizations• take data from an “unsupported” database and push it into Power BI (using

Excel or SQL connectors)

Example Use Cases

from Daniel Laskewitz (here)

Flow + SharePoint

from John White (here)

Flow + PowerBI

Ecosystem

• Embedding where it makes sense

• Focusing on information products (not dev tools)

• SharePoint Online is in private preview

Flow available for Office workers

• In addition to flows being available in SharePoint Online, you will be able to embed Flow directly into custom applications

• Includes the ability to browse flow templates + create them

• as well as.. the ability to kick off a create-from-template

Your App

Embedding directly into applications

• Easily create mobile-optimized applications

• Connect to your data where it resides, access a wide variety of data sources, from SharePoint lists to Excel files

• Integrate apps with larger processes; trigger workflows across your Enterprise based on user actions

PowerApps

Businesses need to deliver apps in a way that stays extensible, connected, secure and fast

AUTOMATE

FlowACT

PowerApps

Connectors to Data and APIs

• Common question about Flows – since it is a multi-tenant, SaaS product

• Standard practices: data sovereignty (e.g. EU customers stay in the EU), encryption of sensitive data at rest (e.g. keys / tokens); etc.

• In the future: will allow organizations to enable / disable particular connectors or templates, so that users cannot unintentionally violate a security boundary (e.g. copy SharePoint files to Dropbox)

What about security?

• For example: financial or payments data, or mission critical B2B data

• Reason to move to Logic Apps / BizTalk instead of Flow (e.g. development in production would be very risky)

• Azure has a lot of enterprise / compliance controls: Azure Cloud Policy, Azure Security Center, Azure Audit Logs, and more

For very tight security

Summary

Recap• Microsoft Flow brings Integration to non-developers / non-IT – big opportunity &

change in large organizations

• BizTalk + Logic Apps cover different, advanced scenarios

• Investments you make in BizTalk 2016 + Logic Apps will also pay dividends with Flow

Resources

Resources• Service Website:

– https://flow.microsoft.com/• Browse Documentation:

– http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=786358&clcid=0x409• Blog (with multiple posts each week):

– https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/• Community User Group:

– http://powerusers.microsoft.com/• Videos:

– https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8nfc9haGeb55I9wL9QnWyHp3ctU2_ThF• Twitter:

– @MicrosoftFlow– #MicrosoftFlow

Thank you.