Flow App

In the previous step, you learnt how to configure triggers. A flow can be configured to prompt the user for input parameters that are available to the flow at execution. In this step, these triggers will be expanded.

Button Flow is a type of instant flow, a flow that can be started by a user on demand.

The trigger to start a button flow is called Flow button for mobile. Button flows allow easily run repetitive tasks from any place, at any time via a mobile device.

Button flows can be started from the Flow mobile app that is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile, or from the Flow portal (usually for test runs).

You can create button flows either from your mobile device or from the flow portal by selecting the flow button for mobile trigger or using one of the many templates available in the button category.

User Input

When the manual trigger is selected, you can add one or more fields that will be presented to the user to input when the button is pushed.

These are presented to the user each time the flow is run. The following is an example of adding a text input and a file.

With the user’s consent flow can access the device camera and photo library. This capability makes button flow very useful in the scenarios where the user needs to provide a photo, for example, in a damage report from the location.

Trigger Tokens

When a button flow runs, it collects and passes data that is known and available on the device, to the flow. These items are known as trigger tokens and include the current time, geographical location, address, and others. They are available as dynamic content within the flow.

Sharing a Button Flow

The following applies to flows created that are not part of a solution. For flows in a solution refer to the Test and Deploy course for more details.

Owners

You can share button flows with other users or groups within your organisation. When you share a button, the person or group with whom you share can run your button, the same way they run their own buttons. If someone else shared a button with you, you can also share a link to that button. You can stop sharing your buttons at any time.

When you share the button using the share command you add users as owners of the flow. Adding another owner allows others to edit, update and delete this flow. All owners can also access the run history and add or remove other owners. If Flow has any embedded connections everyone listed as an owner will have access to all these connections and will only be able to use them in this flow.

Run-Only Users

If you don’t want to grant other users full ownership, buttons can also be shared as run-only using the flow app on a mobile device or using Manage run-only users when you open the flow in the flow portal.

This type of sharing allows the management of run-only permissions. You can specify for each connection used whether users will share the connection defined in the flow or whether they have to provide their own connection.

If you allow others to use your connections, they can’t access the credentials in your connection or reuse them in any other flow.

All run history, including the runs initiated by a person with whom a button is shared, appears only on the activity tab of the button creator’s Microsoft Flow mobile app.

Before users can use run-only buttons shared with them, the button must be added on the mobile device using the Get More command on the buttons tab. That allows users to manage their own set of shared buttons on their device, especially within the larger organisations with potentially hundreds of different buttons.