Step By Step Procedure To Create A Microsoft Flow

Microsoft Flow

Microsoft Flow is a part of Office 365 suite which is a cloud-based software tool that allows users to create an automated workflow across multiple applications and services without the need for developer help. Microsoft flows is built on a top logic app engine. But as this app is built for targeting business personnel, the total process is UI based. To create a flow, the user specifies what action should take place when a specific event occurs.

Steps to Create the Flow

So, our target is to create a flow to create an item in SharePoint Online list. And the flow will be triggered when an email is received in a specific email account. The steps to create the Microsoft flow are given below.

1. Go to the following link.
2. Log in with your credentials.
3. Click on the tab “My Flows”.
   
   
   
   
4. Click the tab from the left side “Create from Blank”
   
   
   
   
5. Now, you will get the option to create a different type of flow.
6. As my target is to trigger the flow by getting an email, I am selecting the option “When a new email arrives”.
   
   
   
   
7. This will open a window which will get us options to set the settings for the email connector configuration.
   
   
   
   
8. Provide the name of the flow in the position 1.
9. Select the folder of your email box in the position 2, default it will be inbox. You can change it if you want.
10. Position 3 is optional. You can provide an email address on that position or it will use the login user address as default.
11. If you want to trigger the flow only from some specific email address, you need to provide those email addresses in the position 4.
12. In the position 5, you can set a condition based on the importance flag of the email.
    
    
    
    
13. There are several options for this condition you can set, but this condition is optional. So, you can ignore it.
14. You can also ignore the 6^th and 7^th position option as these are optional.
15. And in the 8^th position, you can set a condition as if the subject line would have a specific string the flow will be triggered.
16. After providing these inputs, the triggering condition will be set. Now, you need to create a new step by clicking the option “New Step” under current portion.
    
    
    
    
17. By clicking this button, some option will be given for add an action, add new condition and more.
18. But as we don’t need any further condition, we will select the “Add an action” from position 2.
19. A list of activities will be given. You can select any one from here.
    
    
    
    
20. As my target is to create a new item in a list, so I select the “SharePoint – Create item” action.
21. This will give you some option to configure your action.
22. But to get the dynamic content list, you need to click inside any of the fields of the list, like “Subject” in this scenario.
    
    
    
    
23. Provide the site name in the portion 1.
24. Select the targeted list name where you want to create the new item in the position 2 from the drop-down.
25. Now, you will get the list’s columns from your list. As I got the field “Subject” and “Body” as my list column’s name.
26. Now, you can insert the dynamic content by putting them from the dynamic content helper as the position 5. Even you can provide static value in your fields.
27. As per my business, I provided Email Subject in my Subject field in position 3 and select email body in the position 4, my list column body.
28. Now, you can add other condition or action if you want. But as my business is completed, I am clicking the option “Create Flow” from the top bar – left side.
    
    
    
    
29. If there is no required field empty, the flow will be created and saved in my flow list.
    
    
    
    
30. You can get your flow any time from your “My Flows” tab.
31. You can edit it again or turn it off or else if you want from here.
32. Now, we can test it by sending an email to the selected email address. As I have selected my email box, I am checking with my email address.
33. An email has arrived on my email address with a previous email history.
    
    
    
    
34. Now, we have to wait 5 minutes to get the flow to work. As we know the Microsoft Flow runs on a 5-minute interval, the item will be created after 5 minutes.
35. So, after 5 minutes, we see that a new item has already been created in my targeted list.
    
    
    
    
36. Here, we can see the list item with the same subject and email body with the email history in the list.

Conclusion

The same result can be achieved using the Azure Logic app. But you need to have the subscription on Azure for that. There are many more features in Microsoft Flow that can be helpful for achieving other goals.