Using Siri to trigger Flow

[ThatAPIGuy]

Would you like to use your iphone's Siri voice assitant to trigger Flows? Do you have any good use cases for it?

If there is enought interest for this, I will write a blog post about it.

[AlanPs1]

Hi @ThatAPIGuy .

I haven't seen that type of content covered as of yet so a blog on that subject sounds wonderful!

Thanks for suggesting 

Alan

[AndreSchlender]

I was just looking at this exact scenario.  We want to run Flows in a industrial manufacturing environment where staff often need to where protective gloves.  So the abiltiy to enable voice trigger for button flows would be great. Andre

[ThatAPIGuy]

@AndreSchlender 

Thanks for the feedback. Can you explain your flow better? It will be good to include some real world scenarios in the blog post.

[ThatAPIGuy]

Will start writing this post.

[AndreSchlender]

@ThatAPIGuy 

The scenarios at the moment all revolve around regular / mostly daily routine checks of machinery in power stations.

Current processes vary from

• having a paper form and filling it in while checking readings and visual inspection of parts
• somehow remembering what you saw/read, going back to a computer when done and logging review including details

The goal is to offer an alternative option using smart phones.  99% of the audit/review outcomes are that everything is ok and no action needs to be taken.  In this case the fact that an audit was done, when and by whom just needs to be recorded.  I’ve set up button flows to do this - one flow per audit/machine combination.  Some of these audits/inspections happen in areas where safety gear incl. gloves is mandatory.  In these scenarios it would be a nice option to use voice to trigger the button flow that will record a successful audit instance with a “no actions required” outcome.

Does that help to clarify, what I’m looking for?

[LinkeD365]

I have done a post on using Alexa and interacting with Flow in a scenario for creating Field Service bookings. 

https://linked365.home.blog/2019/04/19/alexa-field-service-and-me-part-1/

The scenario is where the end user want to book an appintment to fix or service their device.

I look at both Siri & Google assistant development, but both are a lot more "dev" heavy than it is to create similar for Alexa

[ThatAPIGuy]

@JonL-MSFT and I made a video on using Siri shortcuts to trigger Flow.

Have a look here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3B9Ivs9dxA 

You can also watch this video where I and Eric Mckinney form G&J Pepsi show how they used this to create a support tickets using Siri and Flow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYHkVyFampM

[ThatAPIGuy]

@LinkeD365 

From a development standpoint, I feel Siri shortcuts is the easiest because it only involves creating Siri shortcuts in the Shortcuts iOS app which makes HTTP requests and then Flow gets trigger based on that HTTP request. 

Just my opinion. Have a look at the video links that I just posted and let me know what you think.

[LinkeD365]

Hey @ThatAPIGuy 

Everyday is a school day! Great video with @JonL-MSFT .

Apple Shortcuts has passed me by, more than likely as I am not a Apple user. Looks really simple to configure, maybe I need to persuade work to buy me an iPhone to try it out.

Is there a way a business could publish these? Alexa works differently that it would be a business who makes their app available to the users allowing interaction in a B2C way. In the scenario @AndreSchlender mentions, would every inspector have to do this for themselves or is there a publish mechanism / store?

IFTTT works in the same way you describe, where it is down to an individual to create the flow & send the interaction, but relies on each user doing the configuration.