
Flow – Create automated workflows between your favorite apps - dvcrn
https://flow.microsoft.com
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robinhowlett
This is an area I work in [1]. Folks understandably mention IFTTT/Zapier a lot
but the big players in the enterprise integration space are SnapLogic,
Mulesoft, Informatica, Dell Boomi, with maybe a couple of others making noise
also.

App integration is only one part of it (and arguably the easiest part) -
there's also Data integration, IoT/event streaming pipelines, and integrations
suitable for Big Data processing.

Enterprises naturally have quite specific demands on things like security,
governance, encryption, support etc. that move things away from the free
integration products, and also

I haven't seen much of Flow so far but will pay attention to it. The UX
appears quite simple - it is difficult to build an effective integration
product that is friendly to non-technical folks, while still being powerful
enough for orchestrating complex pipelines by skilled data architects and
developers.

It's a crowded space however, so getting traction may be challenging. I'm
interested to seeing how they go forward with this.

[1] [http://www.snaplogic.com](http://www.snaplogic.com)

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viraptor
This seems like a IFTTT + pipes mashup? With multiple steps, simple logic
blocks, and enterprise integration.

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patomolina
I don't know if IFTTT should be worried –or happy– about this.

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viraptor
Maybe worried. I looked at IFTTT a few times and came back with "I'd like to
use that, but I need a filter / processor in between". I suspect there are
more people like that.

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patife
Pretty interesting. Which filtering or processing are you interested in doing?

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phest
I recommend digging into the available actions, this looks more flexible than
anything else in this space (eg IFTTT, Zapier). There's control flow (if and
while), and some actions aren't tied to any service: there's a "Recurrence"
action that allows to trigger actions at specific intervals, an "HTTP" action
that can send a request with any URL+method+headers+body+auth, there's a
"Delay" action, FTP and SMTP output actions...

edit: "HTTP" can also be a trigger.

edit:

List of service agnostic triggers:

\- Recurrence (RecurrenceTrigger an event to run at regular, customized time
intervals)

\- HTTP (Trigger an event based on a select REST API)

\- HTTP + Swagger (Trigger an event based on a select Swagger-enabled API)

\- Button (Manually trigger a flow)

\- Request (This is an incoming API call that could use actions in a Logic App
or other API to trigger this flow)

\- RSS - When a feed item is published (Triggers a workflow when a new feed
item is published)

edit:

List of service agnostic actions:

\- S/FTP - Create file (This operation creates a file)

\- S/FTP - List files in folder (This operation gets the list of files and
subfolders in a folder)

\- Delay (Set how long an action should be delayed once the flow is triggered)

\- Delay until (Delay an action until a specific date. For shorter time
periods, use the Delay action instead)

\- HTTP (Choose a REST API to invoke)

\- HTTP + Swagger (Choose a Swagger-enabled API to invoke)

\- Response (This is an incoming API call that could use the results of an
action to trigger this flow)

\- Compose ?

\- Filter Array

\- Mail (Sends an email)

\- Push notification - Send a push notification (Sends a push notification to
the Flow app)

\- RSS - List all RSS feed items (Get all RSS feed items)

\- SMTP - Send Email (This operation sends an email to one or more recipients)

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mwarkentin
Not sure if you've looked at Zapier recently, but they've added all sorts of
functionality: multi-step zaps, filtering + logic

You can even write your own code to extend things in Python and JS.

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phest
I did not. I'll take a second look. Thanks.

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peterkshultz
Given Microsoft's increasing emphasis on businesses, it makes sense that this
is more enterprise-focused.

The product itself doesn't seem much different from Apple's Automator.
Microsoft's marketing of Flow, however, is better at demonstrating the
product's power. Apple never quite did that.

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nerdponx
Hopefully its UI isn't as inscrutable as Automator's.

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peterkshultz
I agree. I've opened Automator with a naive optimism that I can learn it and
become more productive. I've been wrong each and every time!

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kenrick95
Microsoft Flow has been around for few months now (in Public Preview), but
they just announced its General Availability.

[https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-
ga/](https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-ga/)

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nmstoker
It's got potential, mashing up pipes and IFTTT with Enterprise as others have
said, but I can't help hearing Admiral Akbar's "it's a trap!". It would need
to be amazing _and_ look long term viable enough before I'd suggest putting
key processes in to it. Something like this seems more appealing:
[https://github.com/cantino/huginn/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/cantino/huginn/blob/master/README.md)

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cyberferret
Do you _have_ to include a Microsoft asset somewhere in the flow pipeline, or
can it work totally independently of any Microsoft apps? (eg/ Twitter => Slack
etc.)

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sumitgt
It doesn't need any Microsoft asset in the pipeline.

~~~
mintplant
Besides Flow itself, of course.

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josep2
I've been using this for a little while. The RESTful interface is pretty cool
for stuff that isn't natively part of the interface.

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huac
Previously -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600739)

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noahmbarr
Microsoft's attempt at Zapier?

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voltagex_
I'm sure I saw this as a tech demo (on the Azure equivalent of AppSpot) a year
or so ago. Anyone remember it?

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dbish
Yes. This was announced earlier this year. Just looks like an IFTTT copy.
[http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/29/11535232/microsoft-flow-
if...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/29/11535232/microsoft-flow-ifttt-
competitor)

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bbarn
IFTTT + Sanctioned by corporate IT? This could be huge.

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keyle
Reminds me of Yahoo Pipes but on a OS level, which is very interesting. I hope
it gets the ease of use it deserves so that it's not just a fringe of users
that end up automating their tasks. Thumbs up from me!

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kondor6c
There is also the similar open source project: Bip.io =
[https://github.com/bipio-server/bipio](https://github.com/bipio-server/bipio)

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ocdtrekkie
I miss Mayhem. Mayhem was an open source IFTTT-like application that ran on
your own PC that Microsoft made a few years back.

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nodey
You can follow us at [http://www.nodecode.io](http://www.nodecode.io). It is a
flow based programming platform written almost entirely in c++ that runs
completely on your local network but you can connect to it using a secure
websocket from outside your NAT. It is still early for us and we are still
working on adding micro-services but the Raspberry Pi GPIO, Insteon, Twitter
and basic remote command line services seem to be working well.

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antarrah
So like Zapier?

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mataug
Should Zapier be worried ? Probably not, unless Microsoft suddenly forms a
large division out of this and manages to get a 100 - 200 integrations going.

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omarchowdhury
Zapier has a built in lock in in their business. Once you get workflows
running why move them over to a new service.

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mistermann
Does Zapier allow you to download an xml backup of your workflow definitions?

If so, if a solid competitor arrives, that maybe has one killer feature, and
they can read those xml files, you can move with minimal downtime.

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NKCSS
Here's a small how-to on how to add your own service:
[https://powerapps.microsoft.com/nl-nl/tutorials/register-
cus...](https://powerapps.microsoft.com/nl-nl/tutorials/register-custom-api/)

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keyle
Side note - Is anyone else's CPU going mad on that page? Chrome PC just goes
flat out sitting on that page.

UPDATE: it's my adblocker. It blocks a part of the page and the javascript
tries to constantly load it if it fails, resulting in about 1000 errors/second
in the console :)

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mistermann
This might explain a long running mystery I've had when I have loooots of tabs
open.

But then, how to find the tab that's stuck in that process? (In FF in my
case.)

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keyle
I had to close the tab while looking at the CPU % to work out that it was that
tab.

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danjc
Would love your feedback on our app integration platform - Flowgear (we came
first!)

You can see what our workflows look like without creating an account at
[https://flowgear.me/s/hZfxYnf](https://flowgear.me/s/hZfxYnf)

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adventurer
They're trying to charge for the ease? of doing things like sending
notifications for item creation in Sharepoint lists, when Sharepoint does this
already for you free. It looks like a hard push for transitioning the whole
suite of products to the Azure cloud. $$

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pgodzin
Seems like IFTTT will end up being a niche for IoT-specific integrations while
this will be used for enterprise integration. What is the value here for
Microsoft when you can create integrations between only competitors like
Google services?

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sumitgt
>What is the value here for Microsoft when you can create integrations between
only competitors like Google services?

[https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/](https://flow.microsoft.com/en-
us/pricing/)

~~~
pgodzin
Missed that, thanks

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Lio
Off topic but the name, Flow, will get confusing fast.

Flow is already used by several projects including Facebook's Flow, a direct
competitor to Microsoft Typscript.

Meanwhile FlowType.js helps with typography.

Not to be confused with Flowjs, which is for HTML5 file transfer.

This is probably going to end up in a search ranking dance off with whoever
has the deepest pockets winning.

[https://flowtype.org](https://flowtype.org)
[http://simplefocus.com/flowtype/](http://simplefocus.com/flowtype/)
[https://github.com/flowjs](https://github.com/flowjs)

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d0vs
So only confusing to JS devs

~~~
Lio
Well that's OK then. :)

That was really just first three things that came to mind as I know that
Typescript competes with Flow (the open source project started by Facebook).

Other non-javascript products with the same name include project and workflow
management software.

My point was more about how larger organisations usually win when they take a
common or functional name for their products.

Microsoft has a long history of trademarking generic terms. I mean if I use
the phrase "an SQL database server" or "a windowing operating system" which
products do you think of?

In the case of "Flow" it's an overloaded product name and whichever entry
comes up first in Google's search results will probably end up 'owning' the
name. Currently for my results it's Microsoft.

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scottmcdot
Does Google have anything equivalent to this?

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patife
Doesn't look like it.

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X86BSD
So... this is... apples automater?

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pvaldes
Looks like if in Microsof were trying hard to assimilate things that are
present in Linux since decades.

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doktorjeep
So a competitor to AWS SWF?

