MAKE FLOW TEMPLATES GREAT!!! - Help the Flow Team

[JonL-MSFT]

Whats up Flow Community!

Today, the Team needs your help! We want to MAKE TEMPLATES GREAT! and to do that we really need your input. It will be super easy to help, I just have two questions.

1. I want to know, If you could have a Flow template, built by the Flow team, that you could just start using tomorrow, to solve one of your biggest issues... What would that be?!
   
   

2. Also, if you don't mind telling me your Job Role/Title - that data point will help me correlate how these different solutions could be helpful for different people.

Feel free to comment as many times as you would like. This is for us to get an idea of some of the things you all, as users are hoping we can help you solve.

Thanks for any input! It will directly benefit the product!

- Jon

[v-monli-msft]

Hi Jon,

Really a great idea here, hope more people could see this and join in!

Regards,

Mona

[pmdc]

I'm a Project Manager at a consulting firm. I've put in a number of hours trying to create a Flow (or PowerApp?) to do the following, at the request of my company's leadership, but can't seem to find a good fit in Flow:

1. Start Action (User Activated) - Enter Name of a Contract or Business Opportunity
   
   • Supply any known additional info (client/customer, contract type, award amount, etc. - all potentially optional)
2. Query the user for input values for important dates and tasks
3. Create tasks/events for the provided information based on certain variables. Examples include:
   • Seven days prior to contract start date, create item "Activate Accounting Charge Codes" and assign it to Accounting (either individuals or groups/teams)
   • Invoice event/task for the 10th day of each month during the period of performance, assign it to Accounts Payable (either individuals or groups/teams)

I've tried a number of ways to do this, but what has come closest is using a SharePoint list to enter data into a spreadsheet format and then use that data to populate tasks. But that has been difficult to configure and is very clumsy from a user perspective. Also, the variables for Tasks are different from those in Planner. And Tasks don't display on the monthly calendar, which is one of the leadership's biggest priorities with this.

[Fritz]

Only a few ideas which would help us. Not sure if all of them fit to your question. Feel free to take out what would fit.

1. Make E-Mail a task

Sending a certain E-Mail to a specified E-Mail address (within O365) and Flow create a task with a category (taken from the subject) out of this automatically. Parallel saving a - maybe - existing attachment to OneDrive for business and adding this link to the task.

2. Fixing the mess with the different languages. Make Flow language (field names) only english. No mixture of different languages. Makes live much more complicated. 

3. Provide better Office 365 connectors. E.g. adding the time zone to a calendar entry in O365 does not work at all.

Please give us all the fields, which are available in a calendar entry, in a task entry, ... Not only partly.

4. Provide better OneDrive / OneDrive for business connectors. If there is a new file in a subfolder, can't put that in the same subfolder without explicitly naming it.

5. Provide Lotus Notes connectors. We have a shared environment. MS Office with SharePoint, but also Lotus Notes for older databases. There are no connectors available at all. Not for Flow, not for PowerApps, not for PowerBI - so we are very limited, where to use Flow or the other PowerTools.

6. Provide connectors for MS To-Do. At the moment only for Wonderlist available.

7. Provide connectors/actions, which do some tasks for us. E.g. new picture gets saved, change the resolution/size and save it on a to specified location/send to specific e-mail.

[hartungstenio]

6. Provide connectors for MS To-Do. At the moment only for Wonderlist available.

@Fritz I'm using the Outlook Tasks Connector. It works with MS To-Do, since both store information in the same place.

[MattMandry]

Trigger - new Teams activity alert

Action - send push notification

Action - send Outlook email notification

[kcummings-c]

I'm a business analyst at a media company that is moving away from SharePoint despite using most other components of Office 365. Instead, we use Box for file sharing and Confluence for knowledge sharing.

I recently looked for a way to send file approval requests via email, having done so in SharePoint for years. It needs to be simple for busy managers to click inside the email to choose an action, such as approve, disapprove, or let's discuss--and then automatically update task status using that response. Alas, my teammate and I wound up creating a manual process to track approvals and changes. 

It would also be very helpful to have a Flow connector to Confluence. I don't have specific user stories in mind, but I'd enjoy looking for ways to trigger actions from Confluence page changes. 

Thank you!

Kristi

[gokello]

We had a need to sync contacts between Office 365 and Mailchimp.  There is an existing MailChimp connector but it connects to personal contacts in Office 365.  Is there a way to extend the MailChimp connector so that it connects with the global contacts defined under  Office 365 Admin Center - see below:

[EdHans]

To autumatically take emails meeting certian criteria:

1. Copied to my default OneNote notebook, just like the OneNote button in Outlook 2016 does, including any/all attachments.
2. Mark the email read
3. Archive the email

[SueKatTylerTech]

I am a business analyst building approval workflows associated to items in a SharePoint list.  What would be helpful is if the approval workflow were enhanced to;

- Allow an approver to forward an approval request to someone else

- Allow a requester to easily recall a request, removing the request from the current approver's "Approvals" page

- Allow a requester to easily re-submit a recalled request to start the workflow over again

Thanks for asking.

-Sue

[Anonymous]

Love this!

I am a Technology Trainer at a College.

We are beginning to use teams in trials, but some of the shortcomings would be great to use flow to intervene:

1. Teams/Planner: I have a task coming up due in 'x' days, email a reminder or push notification. (I currently have a similar one to this working that sends me a morning report of all my tasks in planner that are still outstandiing)

2. I find some people want a way to email/alert when something new is posted to the team, simpply following the channels does not seem to do it. Similar to the email tracking you can have for notifications when part of an O365 Group.

3. Forms: When entry is submitted, email certain person. OR At a set time each day, email a table of all submissions since the time the day before.

Definitely will be coming up with more.

Thanks for this great tool!

[yoshihirok]

Hi @JonL-MSFT

Thank you,  this post.

I hope ..

1. Clear the steps to publish
   After submitted my flow as template, when does it published in templates.
2. Test before published
   I want to test my flow as template before published in templates.
   for avoid to remain my sensitive data in the templates,
   for avoid to use no-suitable parameters in the templates.
3. Manage my template
   After published in templates, I want to manage the template.
   How many templated published, Which templated used, What feedback are there.
4. Remove my template
   After published in templates, sometimes I want to remove my template from templates.
   At found problems, At found sensitive datas
5. Update my template
   After published in templates, I want to update my template.
   for more easy to use, for more speed up, for less runs with same effort
6. Use parameters
   I want to use parameters in my template.
   for use the template more easy without edit in the flow.
   Just like Power BI query parameters, which can use query without edit steps/M code.
7. Restrict in organization
   I want to publish templates for specific users/organizations.

Regards,

Yoshihiro Kawabata 

[stolboe]

I would love to be able to upload a new document in a SharePoint library with the option to fill in the relevant/required metadata. Or, update an existing document in a SharePoint library.

I would love to be able to add or update a list item in a SharePoint list. I don't believe it is possible to update a list item's metadata yet. The example is for a FAQ list that we run.

My position is on the education and communication team for R&D. We are in charge of responding to questions and having appropriate resources for our staff on our products.

[martinushamers]

Hello, I am a SharePoint application manager.

What we would like is:

- Planner to SharePoint(SP) Tasklist 

- SP Tasklist to Planner

- Email to SP Tasklist item creation

- Email to SP Tasklist item update 

for all connections all fields available not just a subset including lookup fields

[paulschaeflein]

The SharePoint trigger "When a file is created" only provides data about the actual file. Please include the SharePoint list item associated with the file.

[MarcRohde]

Extend the functionality to allow Mail Subject to be updated! This stops me from moving from Outlook rules in the thick client to using flows for the majority of my needs.

[MSFlowUser_2017]

Please please please: better sync options between Office 365 Calendar and Google Calendar!

 - create new events works fine

 - sync changes to existing events: template needed for this

 - delete events: template needed for this

Purpose: use Google Home to make inquiries about my Office 365 Calendar (there is no link, thus the google calendar sync request)

This page refers to the ability to sync to google when office event changes but I cannot find this template:

https://brechtvn.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/sync-office-365-calendar-with-google-calandar-using-micros...

I am slowly figuring it out on my own but I have very little free time to devote to this.

[Fritz]

Connectors to MS Word and Adobe Acrobat would be helpful. Open a existing form template and fill form fields in docx or pdf via Flow. Save that file afterwards on SharePoint.
Thanks

[BridgetZ]

I am the SharePoint developer for my company. I would love to see the below options in the approval Templates for SharePoint.

1. Like others said, when using the "When File is created" trigger we really need all the columns availbale to in actions\conditions. I created a custom column that I wanted to be updated when the document is approved (Condition: Response equals approved, if Yes Update item. Right not you will not see the custom column that was created, but this worked in Designer Workflows)

2. When the Approval is sent to the assigned person it says it was from me. Would like option to change that to be the person who uploaded the file or just from the site's name. Or edit the email so it doesn't include this info at all.

3. Easier way to create multiple conditions instead of having to figure out coding (ex: Condition set to review what all the Approvers submit as their response

@and(equals(body('Start_an_approval_(1)')?['response'], 'Approve'),equals(body('Start_an_approval_(2)')?['response'], 'Approve'),equals(body('Start_an_approval_(3)')?['response'], 'Approve'))  )

4. A way for approvers to see their history of Approvals (someone has mentioned the option to recall an approval, so this is similar)

5. When you look at run history, an eaiser way to figure out which document it ran on instead of trying to match up the time of day to when it was updated and then clicking on every flow around that time and reviewing the details.

I know some of these have already been submitted to the Flow ideas.

[azamjavaid]

Hi

I work with many clients as a consultant using SharePoint and Office 365.

Current requirement steps:

1) Create an item in a project request list

2) Wait for approval

3) When approved create a subsite based on a custom template

4) Update permissions

5) Create a list item in the new site

So I suppose the main two would be:

1) Create a subsite in SharePoint

2) Trigger: when a new site is created

Thanks