Last week we learned how to build out our first Flow, and how to run the Flow from inside the Flow Details page. This week, we'll be putting it into practice.
We're going in and see the other ways that we can run our instant Flows while on the go. Just note that there are several different ways to trigger Flows, and we are focusing on only instant Flows. The first place we are going to start is using a button on our phone.
Trigger a Flow in the Mobile App
The first thing that we are going to need to trigger our Flow on mobile is the Power Automate app, which can be downloaded on iOS, or Android. Once downloaded, log in using your email and password which will bring you to the home screen.
From here you can build Flows, browse through out of the box templates, see your Buttons, see your Flows, and use accounts to change which environment that you are in.
We’ve signed in, and we now get to see the Flow that we made last week. If you press on the Flow in activities, you are going to see the details and be able to click on each part to see the code.
To trigger this Flow, we need to navigate to our Buttons.
In the Buttons screen we will see the button with the label on it. To trigger the Flow, it's as easy as pressing the button. You then will have to fill out the variables that we've set up in the Flow.
Once those have been filled out, press Done, and your Flow will run.
Note that from this screen, you can also invite people to use the Flow, or you can create a link to share your Flow.
Trigger a Flow in Microsoft Teams
You are also able to trigger Flows from Microsoft Teams. Please note that the Flows you can trigger from Teams are required to have no variables to input. This means that we are not going to be able to trigger our existing calendar Flow, but instead, we are going to build a new Flow that will still book time in our calendar, but for a set 60 minutes.
To do this, we are going to build out a new Flow that we will call “Book 60 minutes in my calendar.” We will simply create the same Flow, but in the Manually trigger a Flow section, we will not add any inputs.
Under the 'Calendar event', we will add the following string to the End time field:
This will set to add 60 minutes of busy time to your calendar. Your Flow should look like this:
Once you have built and saved the Flow, we will go and trigger it in Teams. The first thing you will need to do is find the Flow app. Click on ... in your left navigation bar, and search for Flow.
Click Add to add it to your Teams, it will pop up in your chat history as a conversation. There are quite a few neat things that you can do with this Flow application. When you click on it, it will give you some options at the bottom to see the things that you can do using the app.
For us to identify the Flow, the first thing that we are going to do is List Flows. This will show us a listing of all of the Flows that we can run in Teams. You can either click on it, or type 'list Flows' in your chat.
This will show you which number your Flow is associated with. We currently only have the one Flow that we can run out of Teams, so let us select that one.
Type in 'Run Flow 1' to run your Flow, and the app will let you know that it has been completed.
Now that you know how to trigger your Flows, go out and build a few and see where you can trigger them from, and what you can do with it all!
If you ever have any questions or need an expert to make you a Flow that you've been thinking about, reach out to us here at Bloom Software. We'll be glad to help help!
