May 23, 2022

How to integrate Flow in Microsoft Teams

Introduction

Some specialized Microsoft 365 applications such as Power Automate enables process automation through which you can keep track of your business and enhance productivity of your organization. According to Microsoft, Power Automate is a “service that helps you to create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data and more”.

So, if you want to get notifications on activities that happen inside Teams such as team’s approval process, documents being downloaded, connecting calendar in Planner and so on, you can use Power Automate to automate and speed up processes. Microsoft offers thousands of templates to automate your routine business processes. Besides, you can also create customized flows as per your specific business requirements.

In this blog, we will learn how to set up Power Automate app in Microsoft Teams and how to use it to create flows without any developer skills. Let’s start –

Adding Power Automate to Teams

To install Power Automate in MS Teams, go to Apps catalog in the left-hand navigation bar of MS Teams app.

Search for Power Automate and install this app by clicking Add.

Once installed, home page (under Home tab) is displayed. Click the New Flow button and select a Teams template of your choice.

Next, follow the instructions on screen and click Create Flow. The flow created will show up on the home page of Power Automate in Teams.

Some of the flows that are available as pre-defined templates are –

  • Follow up on a message
  • Notify a team when a new Forms response is submitted
  • Start an approval while a file is added to SharePoint
  • Notify a team of new SharePoint list items
  • Notify a team when Planner tasks change status
  • Save a message to OneNote
  • Notify a team of new SharePoint files
  • Start an approval when a response is submitted in Forms
  • Schedule a meeting for a message

Creating flow from popular templates

View all available Teams templates by clicking All templates under Create tab. To create a flow, choose a template from the list of pre-defined templates and configure it. For example, select a flow for new task creation in Planner.

You will find a list of apps where your sign-ins are required. The apps will show a green tick to their right if you are already signed in. Then, click Next to go to the next screen.

Now, fill in the details such as Planner Group, Planner Plan, Team to Notify, etc., to set up your flow and click Create flow.

Creating custom flow in Teams

To create a custom flow in Teams, select Home tab and click the New Flow button or select Create tab and click the Create from blank button. The next screen will display some themes under All and a list of triggers and actions.

Select a theme to filter triggers and actions. Now, select a trigger and follow the instructions on the screen.

Similarly, set up the action by following instructions on the screen. Remember, that every flow will have unique instructions and wizards. Further, to check if your flow works properly, you use Test button available on the top. Once ready, click Save and your created flow is good to go.

If you want to edit or delete your flows, simply open Power Automate and go to the home page to find the list of flows you created. Click on ellipsis given at the far right of the selected flow and click Edit to make changes or Delete to remove the flow.

Conclusion

Creating a flow using Power Automate is super quick and easy. Using Power platform, you can optimize time management and increase efficiency. Additionally, Power platform unfolds myriad of possibilities when combined with Microsoft Teams but you can also connect Teams with third-party apps such TeamsHub.io to ramp up overall productivity.

If you want to learn more about TeamsHub.io, please visit https://teamshub.io or contact sales@cyclotrongroup.com to request a demo

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