An Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) is the same as an “Ask Me Anything (AMA)” on Reddit, or YamJam on Yammer. It provides the opportunity for the community to ask questions and have a discussion with a panel of internal and external experts on a particular topic. In order to get the best value out of this hour, take a look at the Flow & etiquette guidelines.

We look forward to hearing from you!

The post Join us TODAY for the second Ask Microsoft Anything event! appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

We want to hear what’s got you thinking about Microsoft Flow and workflow automation! Blog posts can be anything from opinion pieces on the latest industry trends, to helpful tips and how-tos for your fellow Flow users, to even “trip reports” from your local Microsoft event.

To get started, simply message me, @JessicaC, with a rough title for your post and a couple of sentences to describe your topic. Together we’ll make sure you can preview how your post will look once it’s done, and set a publication date.

Posts of the Month

Every few months, we’ll post highlights from the Community blog so you can catch up on any you may have previously missed. Check out these great posts from June and July:

How to call SharePoint from Microsoft Flow with the help of an Azure Function, by Anton Khritonenkov

There are a lot of actions for different platforms in Microsoft Flow. Unfortunately, there is some missed functionality, especially SharePoint related. Anton likes how Azure Functions can be used to creat microservices, which is why he thought it would be a good idea to cover some functionality by Azure Functions and make it easy to use and extend.

A Modern Client Engagement, by pladavm

“As a Chartered Tax Advisor & Chartered Accountant I am often put in a position where I am asked a question but without more information I am unable to provide an answer. My answer typically would be “Yes, I can absolutely help you with that issue, however I need to know” and then proceed to outline a comprehensive list of information requests with accompanying reasoning why each item is required before I can finalise my tax analysis. With Microsoft Flow I demonstrate how we can make this process much more easier and be more engaged with our clients.”

Getting alerts when an email isn’t received, by Elliot Munro

There are plenty of times that you’d like to be notified when a specific email arrives in an inbox, but what about those times when an email doesn’t come through? In this post we’re monitoring status emails sent each day by our client’s backup programs. If a backup program doesn’t send another email within 30 hours, an alert is sent to a backup technician who can acknowledge it using Email Options in Microsoft Flow.

Real-world scenario using Flic’s physical button, SharePoint and Flow, by Daniel Christian

This blog walks through a real-world scenario of how Flic’s physical button can integrate with SharePoint and Flow to give real-time status of all technicians (or engineers, consultants, contractors, ETC) who are at their customer’s location.

Use Microsoft Flow to Integrate Your Website’s Forms with Dynamics 365, by trevor

As a marketer, one of the most tedious business processes is dealing with all of the people that submit forms on a website. Here’s how trevor’s team integrated their website’s forms with Microsoft Dynamics 365, and even further optimized this process with decision-making, email-follow ups, and more.

Process automation with Microsoft Flow using NodeMCU and Arduino IDE, by JoaoLucindo

The purpose of this article is to guide the development of a IoT button integrated with Microsoft Flow platform.

The post Flow Community Blog Highlights appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

You can also find updated webinar listings under Learn in the main site navigation. This page includes both upcoming and past presentations — if you’re not able to attend live, you can view a webinar on-demand at any time after the event.

Check out what we’ve got coming up in the next few weeks! Please note that all webinars are listed in Pacific Time.

Overview of PowerApps Feature Releases for 2017 with Darshan Desai

It’s hard to keep up these days with the product team releasing new features every single sprint! Let’s take a step back and review the long list of new features released thus far this year… you won’t be disappointed!

Watch live or on-demand!

When: 8/1/2017 10:00AM

Rapidly Build Applications with PowerApps Studio with Karthik Bharathy

PowerApps Studio comes with a host of new capabilities allowing users to rapidly build applications. In this walkthrough, app authors will use the latest Studio capabilities to quickly build production applications without having to invest in a lot of learning.

Watch live or on-demand!

When: 8/8/2017 10:00AM

Introduction to PowerApps Controls with Audrie Gordon

In this webinar Audrie will give an overview of the most often used PowerApps Controls. She will walk you through a simple use-case guide on which controls to use when, including 3 control tricks to help you to design “finger-friendly” experiences in your mobile apps too!

Watch live or on-demand!

When: 8/15/2017 10:00AM

Optimizing Connectors in PowerApps and Microsoft Flow with Theresa Palmer-Boroski

One of the most exciting opportunities on the Business Application Platform is the increasing number of data connectors. As this list grows, so does the value-add of your apps and workflows! Please come and learn how to make your power user solutions more powerful directly from Theresa Palmer-Boroski, who is a Senior Program Manager working on the Gateways and Connectors product team! What we’ll cover:

• An overview of connector services
• Tips on how to use docs to leverage the connectors you love most
• Getting started guidance for anyone planning to develop ‘custom’ connectors

Watch live or on-demand!

When: 8/22/2017 10:00AM

Pro Tips for InfoPath Designers Transitioning to PowerApps with Audrie Gordon

Are you a business forms and workflow designer looking to leverage PowerApps and Flow? This is the webinar for you. Audrie will help you to make the switch with the top 10 forms and workflow tips for PowerApps and Flow! Don’t miss it! What you’ll get:

• Demos of the most recent enhancements for forms designers
• We will rebuild a typical InfoPath form in PowerApps; live from start to finish
• Review a helpful decision tree for planning form rebuilds using PowerApps

Watch live or on-demand!

When: 9/19/2017 10:00AM

The post August Webinars: 2017 feature releases, PowerApps Studio, optimizing connectors, and more appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Microsoft Power BI is one of the most popular and feature-rich data visualization tools available. It’s also part of the same business applications, platform, and intelligence organization as Microsoft Flow, which means integrating the two is easy and creates powerful possibilities. For example, let’s imagine that you wanted to set up a workflow automation to alert you when a technical certificate is about to expire. You have a table with four columns for the certificate name, expiration date, the number of days left until expiry, and the certification status.

We want to use Microsoft Flow to take this data and turn it into a streaming dataset in Power BI, which can then have reports and dashboards built on top of it. How you’re storing this data set is up to your organization — you probably already know that Microsoft Flow has a connector for almost everything, from a highly optimized SQL Server or MySQL database to a simple Excel workbook or Google Sheet. Once you’ve identified your source, you can set it up as streamingdata set on the Power BI service. After logging into the service, click the Create button in the top right corner, and select Streaming dataset.

Microsoft Flow can push data directly through the API, so select that as your data source. Give the streaming dataset a name, and enter the names of the columns from your original table that you want to include. When you’re done, it will look something like this:

It’s time to create the flow! Log into Flow, and Create from blank. Next, select the Schedule connector and specify when the dataset will update. Click New Step, and then click Add an Action.

Find your data source in the list — SQL Server, Excel, whatever you’re using. You want multiple rows, so select Get rows from the available actions. Connect to your data source, and choose your certification table from the drop-down list. Click New Step and Add an Action again, and find Power BI in the list of connectors. We want to Add rows to a dataset, so enter the information needed to connect to your Power BI workspace, dataset, and table. Drag and drop to match the columns from your original dataset to the columns in your streaming dataset.

Save your flow. It’s ready to go! After your flow has run at least once, you’ll have access to the data in Power BI, and can use it to build up-to-date insightful reports and dashboards that can be shared across your organization.

Looking good! For all the details behind this flow, and to see Patrick go through each of these steps, watch the Guy in a Cube video:

The post Create a streaming dataset in Power BI using Microsoft Flow appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

We want to hear what’s got you thinking about Microsoft Flow and workflow automation! Blog posts can be anything from opinion pieces on the latest industry trends, to helpful tips and how-tos for your fellow Flow users, to even “trip reports” from your local Microsoft event.

To get started, simply message me, @JessicaC, with a rough title for your post and a couple of sentences to describe your topic. Together we’ll make sure you can preview how your post will look once it’s done, and set a publication date.

Posts of the Month

Every few months, we’ll post highlights from the Community blog so you can catch up on any you may have previously missed. Check out these great posts from May:

Using the Azure Logic Apps Workflow Definition Language (WDL) in Microsoft Flow, by sergeluca

There are many situations with Microsoft Flow where we need non standard features, and as developer, Serge is way too often tempted to jump on the custom API and to create my custom Azure function or Azure Web API to provide exactly what I need. If all you have is a hammer everything will look like a nail… but using the hammer can be overkill, so let’s add another tool to our (Flow) toolbox.

How to never lose your car again in under 10 minutes using Microsoft Flow, by Jennifer Pearcey

Don’t lose your car, ever again with the click of a Flow app button on your mobile device, your GPS location is stored. Upon completion a notification is sent to your device, complete with a link to provide step by step directions back to your car.

Dynamics 365 Workflow vs Microsoft Flow – Which one do I use?, by Jerry Weinstock

Dynamics 365 workflow vs Microsoft Flow dilemma has been solved!

Update a secondary SharePoint list using Flow, by Daniel Christian

In this blog we are going to walk through the process of building a custom Flow using SharePoint list.

The post Flow Community Blog Highlights appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

———————————

Today, I want to talk about something that opens up the flow beyond the scope of connecting cloud services and being able to help running tasks on your local computer. Very often I forget to lock my computer before leaving the desk only to remember it later in a meeting, but by this time the damage would already be done, such as a prank e-mail to the team from my mailbox. So, we are going to attempt a solution to this problem using the following capabilities:

• Gateways
• File System connector
• Basic PowerShell scripting

Approach

Gateways provide a way for on-premise services to connect to the cloud. Use cases involve connecting a on-premise SQL database to a flow for use in internal systems where customers don’t want their SQL data in the cloud.

In addition, flow buttons are an elegant way to trigger a flow with a single click. (We could also integrate a hardware button from home that could do the same with a HTTP request.)

With the above said, the solution involves the following:

A PowerShell script that is running in your local computer. The script is watching a directory for a file event and locks the computer on it:
 

$watcher = New-Object System.IO.FileSystemWatcher

$watcher.Path = "C:\Lock"

$watcher.Filter = "*.*"

$watcher.IncludeSubdirectories = $true

$watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = $true 

$action = {

    . rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation

}   

### DECIDE WHICH EVENTS SHOULD BE WATCHED

Register-ObjectEvent $watcher "Created" -Action $action

Register-ObjectEvent $watcher "Changed" -Action $action

Register-ObjectEvent $watcher "Deleted" -Action $action

Register-ObjectEvent $watcher "Renamed" -Action $action

while ($true) {sleep 5}

Install the Data Gateway configure it with Flow by following the instructions.

Once the installation is complete and the Data gateway is configured, add a “File System” connection by navigating to the “Gear” icon -> Connections -> Create Connection -> File System and select the “Connect via on-premise data gateway”. You should be able to see your data gateway in the drop down list. Complete the connection creation.

The flow in itself is very simple as it just needs to create a file on the click of a button. Most of the heavy lifting is done by the PowerShell script.

Since I added a button trigger, I can use it from my Flow app on my phone to lock my computer on demand.

Now at the click of a button I can lock my workstation and no more prank e-mails. We are also automating our internal deployment with a combination of this technique and approvals to allow a smooth automated deployment workflow using Flow.

Summary

Once completing the seemingly innocent flow, we can extend this to do a variety of tasks by simply defining a protocol over the FS and the PowerShell script and automate many workflows that would require an on-premise workstation to be in picture.

As part of walking through the Flow, we learn the following capabilities from Flow:

• Data gateways
• File System connector
• Flow buttons for mobile

Go forth and automate!

The post Flow of the Week: Local code execution appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

If you’re attending, make sure to check out all the exciting community events we’ll be hosting in between panels and networking opportunities. We’ve got a QR Code Scavenger Hunt, prize giveaways, and an exciting Virtual Reality immersive experience. Of course our very popular photo booth will return this year with even more hats and props, as well as the famous Swag Prize Wheel! We’ll also be holding a raffle to attend limited book signings with keynote speakers Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the authors of Freakonomics, and keynote speaker Alberto Cairo, author of The Truthful Art and The Functional Art.

At the Summit, you’ll get to meet the new Data Insights Super Heroes — a collection of space defenders representing Flow, PowerApps, Excel, and Power BI. Here’s a sneak preview:

Inventive Flox has the gear ready to automate the team ship’s processes. Keep an eye on our community blog this week while we debut the rest of the Datanauts crew!

(And if you’re not able to attend the Data Insights Summit, you can catch panels and keynote presentations on the livestream.)

The post Don’t miss these community events at the Data Insights Summit! appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.