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ramichael
Regular Visitor

Microsoft Flow right for me?

Good afternoon,

 

Is Flow the right product for me?  I'd like to create an online work request form that will e-mail me the form, then allow me to let the requestor know the work has been performed.  Any ideas would be most appreciated.

 

Thank you,

Arlene

12 REPLIES 12
ScottShearer
Super User
Super User

@ramichael 

Flow is a workflow tool that automates tasks.  You cannot create forms using Flow.  In addition, you'll need to sore your data somewhere.

Some suggestions:

Use a SharePoint list to store your data

You may consider using the out of the box SharePoint forms for your users to enter data or you might use PowerApps to customize the forms.

Flow can be used to send emails.

 

If you can provide additional details on your requirement, I believe that others and I can provide additional guidance.

 

 

If I have answered your question, please mark your post as Solved.
If you like my response, please give it a Thumbs Up.

Scott
RobElliott
Super User
Super User

Hi @ramichael, yes Flow is definitely the right app for this. For the work request you could use Microsoft Forms which knows who is logged in so they don't need to enter their name. Flow will then grab the response, save it to a SharePoint list of all the work requests with a Status column initially set to Pending. When you complete the work you would edit the SharePoint list item and change the Status to Completed. In a separate flow (When an item is created or modified) if the status of that item is Completed it would send an email to the requestor.

Rob
Los Gallardos
If I've answered your question or solved your problem, please mark this question as answered. This helps others who have the same question find a solution quickly via the forum search. If you liked my response, please consider giving it a thumbs up. Thanks.

HI Scott,

 

Thank you for your quick reply.  My process is as simple as I described...online form, e-mail to me, reply for notification of completion.  I have the form done in Word, but can re-create in another format.

Hi Rob,

 

Thank you for your quick reply.

 

Is there a help area for me to get detailed instructions on how to set up this process?

Yes I can give you the steps for this, just not today as I am shortly to go into a probably-long meeting. Someone else might step in but if not I'll post here again tomorrow.

Rob
Los Gallardos

No real hurry....thank you!

Thought I had already posted this, but....they've thrown a monkey wrench into my works.

 

Now they want the  process to be:

 

Customer fills out work order online

Customer chooses who to send the form to for approval

Approver e-mails form to me

I complete work

I send form back to originator with note that work is done

Form is saved to repository

 

Rob, can flow still work for me, and if so, what are the steps to set it up?

HI Rob,

 

Are you available to help me with this flow this week?

 

Thanx,

Arlene

Oh gosh I'm sorry, I didn't get back to you (Ed: he's getting very old!). Yes, tomorrow but particularly Thursday are good for me. Let me look again at what you want to do and I'll set aside some time on Thursday to help you.

Rob
Los Gallardos

Thank you, Rob!  Thursday would be excellent.  Here's the flow I need.  I'll work on the form myself.

 

Customer fills out work order online

Customer chooses who to send the form to for approval

Approver e-mails form to me

I complete work

I send form back to originator with note that work is done

Form is saved to repository

Hi @ramichael, I've done a demo for you which I hope shows you how to achieve the steps in your last post although obviously it won't match your requirements exactly. There are other ways to do things so other contributors here might have a better way to tackle any or all of it! My example actually uses 2 flows: one to handle the approval and email to you and one to handle the work complete email back to the requestor. 

If you've got questions about any of this do post again.

0 - Using Forms we have created a simple Work Order request with just 3 questions -  I'm sure yours will be a lot better -  and in this case  the area of work is "Farm Operations", the description is "Harvest top field" and the final question is who should approve this request which I've set to me so I can demonstrate what happens. Ther eis no need to have a name or a date as Office 365 knows who is submitting the form and we'll grab that later.

0-Form.png

 

 

 


1
- the repository for the request, approval decision and completion date is a SharePoint list. The view of the list in the image has the Created and Created By date as well which are automatically populated.1-InitialSPList.png

 

2- the form has been submitted and Flow has created the item in the SharePoint list.

2-RequestAddedtoSP.png

3- Flow then sends an approval email to the approver selected. The approver can enter comments and approve or reject the request.

3-ApprovalEmail.png

4- Flow then saves the decision, decision date and and comments to the SharePoint list and, if it's approved, sends you an email to action the request.

4-SPlistwithApproval.png

 

 

 

 

 

So the flow for this is as follows:

5- We have a trigger that fires when a new Forms response is submitted. We then get the details from that response.5-FlowTrigger.png

6- And then we have a SharePoint create item action which adds an item to the list and adds in the area of work, description and approver. We then have a type of condition called a switch case which just looks at one thing which is the approver. 

6-CreateItemSwitch.png

 

7- In case the approver is Rob Elliott then Start and wait for an approval. You can have up to about 27 cases and it saves having multiple and very complex nested conditions.

7-CaseRob.png

 

8 - The flow waits for the approver to complete their approval and then you update the SharePoint list with the outcome of the approval, the completion date and any comments. It will wrap this in an apply to each control automatically.

8-UpdateItem.png

 

9 - We then add a condition that if the outcome is Approve, in the if yes green channel send you an email with the details for action. You could add a link to the item but in this example I haven't. If the Outcome is not Approve then send an email back to the requestor saying so with the comments from the approver.

9-EmailCondition.png

 

10 - You would then edit the SharePoint list item and add a date into the WorkCompleted column.

10-WorkCompletedSP.png

 

11 - Flow would then trigger an email to the requestor saying that the request had been completed. 

11-WOCompletedEmail.png

 

12 - The second Flow for that is as follows. You use a SharePoint when an item is created or modified trigger and add a condition that will look at whether the WorkCompleted column is empty.

12-CompletedFlowTrigger.png

 

13 - If it is empty do nothing. If it is not empty, in other words you've added the Work Completed date, then what I've done is to format the date into UK format (albeit I'm in Spain) and send the email to the original requestor.

13-FlowCompleteEmail.png

 

 

 

 

 

Rob                            
Los Gallardos
If I've answered your question or solved your problem, please mark this question as answered. This helps others who have the same question find a solution quickly via the forum search. If you liked my response, please consider giving it a thumbs up. Thanks.

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