INTRODUCTION
Microsoft Flow is a cloud-based software that allows you to create the flows to automate your day-to-day and business activities. You can enter into the Microsoft Flow page by clicking
here.
There is also a mobile version of Flow available, you can install it from your app store. It helps you to create the flows based on your requirements. For using Microsoft Flow, you must have a Microsoft account for signing up. The main advantage of using this software is it does not need even a single line of code. It is also called a power automate. There will be two types of flows provided by Microsoft. One is the normal basic version and the other one is the Premium version. Some of the advanced flow options come under the premium option and some basic processes are done using the basic version of the flow. Let us discuss creating a workflow for basic email automation using Microsoft flow in this article.
TYPES OF WORKFLOW AVAILABLE IN FLOW
There are four different types of flow available in Microsoft Flow, they are:
- Automated Flow
- Instant Flow
- Scheduled Flow
- Business Process Flow
Automated Flow
The flow that automatically works based on a trigger event. When the event occurs, the flow gets triggered automatically and the flow gets executed completely.
Instant Flow
The flow gets executed when it is triggered manually, so you don't need to attach any trigger event to this flow.
Scheduled Flow
It is a flow which gets executed at a certain period, which was entered by the user. It is also having the option of repeating the flow after a certain period.
Business Process Flow
It is a process which comes under the business automation concept. You are able to create the Business Process Flow, only if you have a premium account.
CREATING A SIMPLE AUTOMATED FLOW FOR EMAIL AUTOMATION
You can create a new flow by clicking the create option from the menu.
After clicking that you can then choose the automated flow for creating an automated flow. You can choose from the templates which are already available.
After clicking automated flow, a dialog box gets opened. In that you should enter the flow name and you should choose the primary trigger for the automation process.
Now we are going to create a simple email automation process. Microsoft flow also supports Gmail for the email automation process. You can choose the trigger based on your email service provider.
After choosing the trigger you can click the create button to create the Flow.
After creating the flow, a page opens with the basic trigger for the automation. You need to sign into your email account by clicking the sign-in button available there.
After signing in you can add a new action by clicking the new step button available in the bottom.
Then you can choose an action from the list of actions available, based on your requirement.
Here I choose the option of sending a notification to the mobile device. For receiving that notification, you need to install the flow app in your mobile from your app store.
Then save the flow by clicking the save button available there.
After saving the flow we are going to test it by clicking the test button available there.
After clicking that, you need to select the I’ll perform the trigger action radio button then click save and test button. By choosing that radio button you need to perform the trigger action (sending a testing mail to the mail id you used to sign-in, from another mail-id).
After execution the trigger and action are marked with a green mark, which indicates the execution of flow without error.
As per our action we will receive a notification to our mobile phone, from the flow application.
CONCLUSION
By using the flow application, you can automate your activities and your business process. This helps you to automate your process and use this in a required way for us.