Introduction of Microsoft Flow

• Microsoft Flow is a service that helps you create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data, and more.
• It facilitates users in creating workflows to reduce time-consuming tasks or processes, send/receive notifications, collect/organize and update data and synchronize files.
• Enterprises no longer create personalized workflows every time, instead, they are shifting towards Microsoft Flow as it provides support for several scenarios by bringing together two or more cloud services with the creation of workflows.

• Slogan of Microsoft Flow "Work Less, Do More" which also describe that you can do more tasks with the Hundreds of Applications which has an Amazing Integration with Microsoft Flow.
• Microsoft Flow allows you to automate business processes by building workflows based on certain triggers and actions. For example, once a new entry is added to the SharePoint list – an email can be sent asking an individual to review. Or, maybe when a document is uploaded to the document library, an email will be sent to your manager asking for an approval/feedback of the document.

Why Choose Flow for Business ?

      As you would have known by now that Microsoft Flow offers multiple approaches and functionalities to ease your business operations. Besides, you also have an option of using the mobile apps for iPhone and Android to monitor as well as manage your flows. Office 365 is not a requisite and you can have up to 25 flows in your account. Now handle your organization’s flow with enterprise-grade control, take actions rapidly and get notifications on the move. Also, it helps in reducing implementation timelines, since it eliminates the need for coding. Moreover, it increases 3rd party integration capabilities of SharePoint.

Features of Microsoft Flow

• Get notifications, manage your flows, and trigger manual flows with just a tap of a button with the Microsoft.
• Flow mobile app for iOS or Android.
• Provide support for text messages via Twilio.
• Provide different types of connectors that enable you to exchange data between SharePoint Online (On-Premises also) and a variety of Microsoft as well as third-party services.
• Enables you to create, update, new items and documents in SharePoint Online and also send notifications.
• Enables creating custom APIs in Microsoft Flow.
• Helps to connect with Power BI and enables the use of Azure services such as blob storage, resource manager and Document DB.
• The Microsoft Flow’s Admin Center allows you to create environments, manage permission and set up Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies.
• Create and customize Microsoft Flow instead of SharePoint custom Workflow easily.
• Supports business automation in 42 languages and 6 regions.
• Microsoft Flow enriches both Office 365 and Dynamics 365 with new workflow capabilities.
• Save hashtag tweets on a SharePoint list.
• Creation of CRM entities based on the SharePoint list.
• Copy file between SharePoint and OneDrive, Dropbox and SharePoint.
• Microsoft Flow offers more connectivity to Microsoft and third-party services.

Drawbacks Of Microsoft Flow

Undoubtedly Microsoft Flow is Faster than Designer Workflows, however it has Many limitations described below.

• There are still some issues with reading and writing multi choice fields, lookup, and metadata columns.
• SharePoint Designer workflows can be started under App step permissions. Microsoft Flow is always started by a user who specified credentials in SharePoint connector.
• However the Microsoft Flow is also not able to Grant/Remove Site, List, Item Permissions as well as it also can not Restore the Inheritance of sites, List and Items.
• There is also one more Limitation of the Flow Runs per Month. It allows us the Limited runs of the Flow as per your Subscription of the Plan.

Plans And Pricing of Microsoft Flow

• Plan 1 is an extra option priced at $5 per user per month. This plan has 4,500 Runs Per Month.
• Plan 2 is an optional item priced at $15 per user per month, or it's included in three Dynamics 365 subscription plans: Enterprise Plan 1, Enterprise Plan 2 and the Business edition. Once again, access to the Common Data Service is just available to Plan 1 and Plan 2 subscribers. There are management differences between the two plans. For instance, only Plan 2 has the ability to "establish company policies regarding the usage of different connections and flows". This Plan has 15,000 Runs Per Month
• If we want More Runs of the Flow then we have to Purchase Extra runs for the Flow. We can buy more flow runs in increments of 50,000 flow runs per month.

Hope you have enjoyed reading this blog. Our next blog will cover Approval process for SharePoint List Item using Microsoft Flow.