ECS19 - Serge Luca - MICROSOFT FLOW IN REAL WORLD PROJECTS: 3 YEARS LATER AND WHAT’S NEXT

1. MICROSOFT FLOW IN REAL WORLD PROJECTS:
3 YEARS LATER AND WHAT’S NEXT
Serge Luca aka Doctor Flow
MVP O365 Apps & Services
MVP Business Applications (Flow)

2. ♡ DIAMOND AND PLATINUM SPONSORS ♡

3. Office Apps & services MVP
Business Applications MVP
O365 Architect
@sergeluca
ShareQL Brussels
Office365
Flow
Dev
Architecture
Bullshit
Doctor Flow aka “Serge Luca”

4. https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66476

5. Key Questions
Any Flow showstopper ?
Do I need to use a third party tool ?
Robust ?
Very easy ? Expensive ?
Here is our experience after 3 years
and 9 enterprise flow projects…

6. Microsoft
flow and
citizen
developers

7. Demo:
Automatic timesheet

8. Microsoft
flow and
developers

9. Create REST
Services
(like Azure
functions)
Create
Custom
Connectors
Call REST
APIs from
Flow
Integrate
Flow in their
Applications
Developers
Activities
Requires P1Requires P1

10. Demo:
Calling
the Graph API
Requires P1

11. Demo:
Custom Connector
Requires P1

12. Patterns
and
limitations

13. State machine pattern or Controller patternNo State Machine
No custom task
forms
Max 5,000 iterations in Do until –> Create embedded
loops
Max 5,000 iterations in For each (100,000 in Plan 1)
Loops
Create nested flows or raise a ticket250 actions/flow
Flow Approval
duration : 30 days
Flow duration :
30 days
No guest access
Controller pattern
In the roadmap for Flow & PowerApps
ALM/devops
weak
I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you…
Custom approval actions
Cannot resume
flow
In the roadmap

14. Boss validates the final document
Secretary validates style
Advisors validate content
User Publishes a new “legal” document
Why State
Machine ?

15. State Machine and
> 30 days
« Flow Controller
Pattern »
Controller
Launcher flow
SecretaryAdvisor Boss
escalate
timeout
approved
rejected
in vacation
timeout
approved
rejected
redirect
in vacation
timeout
approved
rejected
escalate
Normal flow
Service flow

16. 3 Implementations Messages
(Service
Bus)
Database
(SQL Azure)
Http &
Request
(Requires
P1 license !)
Requires P1

17. Demo:
Approval escalation
Approval analytics
Controller pattern
Machine Learning

19. Started from
Excel
Started from SP
New Expense
from App
Trigger : Excel for a
selected row
Trigger :
SharePoint for a
selected row
Existing Expense
from App
Trigger :
SharePoint : when an item is
created
Proxy Flows
Service Flow

20. Requires P1

21. • the url might change, we want to use a stable vanity url like
https://flowdemo.azure-api.net
• you might need to protect it : authentication
• throttling
• restricting the callers to some specific network locations
• ….

22. Returns max
2048 records

23. Returns max
5000 records
or 100.000 if
P1 licence
$skiptoken=Page=TRUE%26p_ID=3000&top=5000

24. Demo:
Manage errors

25. Demo:
Manage parallelism

26. Adapt retry policy
Reduce flow concurrency
Use several connectors
Error HTTP 429 : « I’m too busy » come later (in 10 sec)
Flow throttled by the Service (like SharePoint) and by
the Connector (600 calls/min)

27. 202 ACCEPTED
The request has been accepted for
processing, but the processing has not been
completed.
Long Call Duration
Pattern
Requires P1

28. Demo:
Manage Long calls

29. Office 365
audit log
Webhook
1
2

30. Microsoft
flow and
PowerBI

31. FLOW
DATA ALERTS
DATA SOURCES
POWER BI
SCHEDULED REFRESH
STREAMING DATA
LIVE
POWERQUERY
Requires P1
Data On premises
REFRESH DATASET (april 2019)

32. Conclusions

33. Conclusions
You can, but it will be much much more expensive
Do I need to use a third party tool ?
Is it robust enough for enterprise business processes ?
Is Flow is very easy to use and not expensive (Office 365 license)
Easy : Yes but it sometimes requires “advanced” skills
Cheaper than anything else but be careful with P1
Very robust engine (Logic Apps) – we’ve tested it on thousands of
flows 24x24x365
Reliability depends on the connector and on your architecture
Error handling and Flow monitoring
Start with Flow in a first place, your prototype might survive

34. Conclusions
I ALWAYS define UML Use Cases
I often define UML Activity Diagrams
I often define RACI matrices (Responsibility assignments)

35. thank you
questions?
HTTPS://SERGELUCA.WORDPRESS.COM/@SERGELUCA

38. Use Case Diagrams
• Used during requirements
elicitation to represent external
behavior
• Actors represent roles, that is, a
type of user of the system
• Use cases represent a sequence of
interaction for a type of
functionality; summary of
scenarios
• The use case model is the set of
all use cases. It is a complete
description of the functionality of
the system and its environment
Passenger
PurchaseTicket