This document provides an overview and summary of Microsoft Flow Advanced. It discusses how to create flows, limitations, environments, extensibility, pricing and the roadmap. The presentation covers personal productivity uses, templates for flows like expense reports, and approval escalation. It also highlights connectivity to on-premises systems via the data gateway and calls to external systems using actions. Limitations around SharePoint, approvals durations and complex business processes are noted. The positives of an easy tool and integration capabilities are balanced with it being young and unknown reliability.

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Microsoft Flow Advanced : what you need to
know…Serge Luca , Isabelle Van Campenhoudt
@sergeluca ,@thesqlgrrrl

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Serge Luca
11 x SharePoint MVP, Brussels
SharePoint since 2002
SP & O365 Architect (Admin, Dev, governance)
Managing partner of www.shareql.com
Worked for the MS workflow team
Blog: http://sergeluca.wordpress.com/
sergeluca@shareql.com
@sergeluca

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Isabelle Van Campenhoudt

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Agenda

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Environment + Data Loss prevention
Creating Flows
Introduction : the concept
Flows and on premises
Extensibility : communication with the outside world
Price & roadmap
Conclusions

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The context

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Personal productivity
Collaboration : Approval & Review,…
Quickly create (0 code) Business Processes apps “Citizen
development”
4 main benefits :
Bridge between Applications

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The context : business Apps
Empower power users
Connect data across apps
More efficient developers
App Services
Service Fabric
Azure Functions
…
Logic Apps
API Management
BizTalk
…
SQL Server BI
Data analytics
Internet of Things (IoT)
…
Build modern business app fast

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Creating Flows

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Creating and managing Flows
Microsoft Account (free) or Office 365 or Dynamics 365 or Flow (paid) or
PowerApps (or free new PowerApps Community Plan)
Flow.microsoft.com
Powerapps.microsoft.com
A modern SharePoint Online list
Mobile app (iOS-Android-Windows Mobile)

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Flow templates

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demo
EXPENSE REPORT

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Approval escalation in Flow

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Approval problems…
• What do we do if the item (to be approved) is deleted ?
• What if the flow is cancelled
• No approval reassignment(->roadmap)
• Limitation of Flow :
• flow duration = max 30 days
• Approval duration = max 30 days
->What if Approval 1 = 20 days & Approval 2 = 15 days ?
• However (great) Approval history is perpetual

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Limitations
• 250 actions/flow ->create nested flows
• SharePoint
• Limitation when more than 5000 items in a SharePoint list?
• The flow cannot run with the security context of the user ->roadmap
• No OOB site level actions ->roadmap
• Cannot OOB change item security ->roadmap
• No content publishing ->soon
• Lookup field pointing to another web ?

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Limitations
• No out of the box send for review ->soon
• No custom input forms for approvers->roadmap
• Flow duration : 30 days ; loops : max 5000 iteration->???

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Microsoft Flows and On Premises

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Flow and data on premises
• Install the « on Premises data gateway »
(shared between PowerBI, PowerApps and Azure Logic
Apps) Not just databases, but also
Powershell scripts, files and
(recently) : REST API web
services

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demo
FLOW & DATA ON PREM

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Environments

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Environments & compliance
• Isolated spaces where Flows/Data are
running/stored
– Ex HR, Marketing, Operations, Legal, DEV, TEST,
UAT, PROD…
• Different rules (DLP)
– Ex marketing can use twitter, Legal and Production
cannot
• Different regions if needed
[Plan 2 for creating Env]

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ENVIRONMENTSDEV MARKETING
TEST MARKETING
UAT MARKETING
PROD MARKETING
DEV OPERATIONS
US
TEST OPERATIONS
US
UAT OPERATIONS
US
PROD OPERATIONS
US
US
DLP
DEV OPERATIONS
EUROPE
TEST OPERATIONS
EUROPE
UAT OPERATIONS
EUROPE
PROD OPERATIONS
EUROPE
E
U
DLP

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Attention
• We can export-import Flows from Env1 to Env2
• We have to recreate the connections (fixed in roadmap)
• SharePoint lists based on GUID (! From SharePoint test site to SharePoint prod
site !)
• On premise data gateway :
• Gateways only in the default environment

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demo
ENVIRONMENTS

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Extensibility &
Communication with the outside world

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 Action Request
 Action Http
 Custom Connector (REST API described in a Swagger/Open
API )
PowerApps calls Flow
A custom app calls Flow (« Flow as a service »)
PowerBI calls Flow (Data Alerts)
Flow calls the outside world

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PowerBI & Flow
FLOW
DATA ALERTS
DATA SOURCES
POWER BI
SCHEDULED REFRESH
STREAMING DATA
LIVE

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Pricing & roadmap

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Tarifs: Comparaison

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Conclusions

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Positive
• Easy tool
• Not just SharePoint (it replaces SPD)
• Connections to hundreds of services
• Including on prem!
• SharePoint Integration is getting better
• PowerApps, PowerBI integration
• Team Flow is very proactive & delivers

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Negative
• Young, unknown reliability
• No state machines (but we have loops and tests)
• Collect feedback weak
• SharePoint integration still weak
• Flow duration : 30 days, Approval : 30 days
• Weak for long business processes

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Advices
• Keep your forms as simple as possible
• Manage the business logic in the workflow
• Use environments
• Define system accounts for your connections
• Limitations
• Learn the Logic Apps Workflow Definition Language
(WDL)
– Read my blog post
https://sergeluca.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/using-the-azure-
logic-apps-workflow-definition-language-in-microsoft-flow-
part-1/

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Merci à notre sponsor !
Sergeluca@shareql.com
@sergeluca

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SharePoint Designer Flow
Multiple connections to >150 data sources SQL, SP, ODBC & WSDL only ALWAYS
Out of box templates <5 100s
Workflow & approval history <365 days Perpetual
Approvals over mobile + mobile notifications NEVER iOS, Android, Windows Phone + in Outlook.
History coming imminently.
Loops, Do Until, Switch-case, parallels, variables Yes Yes
On-premises support Native Gateway support
Extended field types (people, choice, MMS, lookup) Yes People, choice, lookup – Yes new, MMS –
coming soon
Send email as user or system System only Yes
Attachments Yes Yes new

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SharePoint Designer Flow
Out-of-box send for review Limited Q4CY2017
Reassignment of approvals Yes Q4CY2017
Approval reminders Yes Q4CY2017
Custom input forms for approvers Yes Q4CY2017
Document library CI-CO, approve Yes Future
Approver impersonation Via permission elevation Future
Site level actions Yes Future
Set permissions on an item Yes Future

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Microsoft Flow roadmap - highlights
H2 Calendar 2017 Calendar 2018
oExport/import app packages across envs
oSPO – “In-the-box” review flows
oSPO – use flow for Content Publishing approvals
oSPO – people, choice, attachment and multi-values
oIn-context in Dynamics 365
oEmbedded Power BI analytics
oOffice 365 audit logs
oSupport for GDPR compliance
oUK deployment
oHTML rich text editor
oGuides for debugging actions and conditions
oGovernment and sovereign clouds deployment
oALM – Sandbox environments
oALM – Move or copy across environments
oLeverage device signals (e.g. Location)
oAppSource integration
oAzure functions integration