Power Apps for Teams

Like to see this direction, not only as a means to interact, share data and improve collaboration, but Apps that will address particular inefficiencies that already exist in business.   We all do business, lets make it work better.    Add intelligence to work flow, business process, goal achievement  ... results.  Will it? Don't know, but will take a look.   We need more testing beyond the obvious.   (Considerable details at the link) 

Microsoft expands Teams with meetings apps and low-code tools in Venturebeat   By Emil Protalinski

Microsoft today announced the general availability of Teams apps for meetings. For those who prefer a low-code approach, Power Apps for Teams, the Power Automate app, the Power Virtual Agents app, and Dataverse have also hit general availability. These announcements come on the heels of Teams passing 115 million daily active users (DAUs) last month. This is a pandemic-induced explosion, given that 16 months ago Teams had 13 million DAUs.

Microsoft Teams is the company’s Office 365 chat-based collaboration tool that competes with Slack, Facebook’s Workplace, Google Meet, and even Zoom. Indeed, Microsoft is in a virtual meeting war with Google and Zoom. Teams has seen 200 million meeting participants in a single day, Google Meet has seen more than 235 million meeting participants, and Zoom has seen 300 million meeting participants. (Unlike DAUs, “meeting participants” can count the same user more than once.)   ... ' 

Dominos Shows a Way to Connect to Data

For me, linking Domino's pizza more directly to my smart home is not a priority, but the example here is interesting.  Use IFTTT to link to a stream of data to trigger other actions.  Make the embedded analyses as complex as you need.

Pizza giant links deliveries to customers’ smart technology
By Deena M. Amato-McCoy

' ... For example, one applet lets customers digitally turn on their porch lights as their delivery arrives, while another deactivates lawn sprinklers as the delivery driver makes his way up the walk. Customers can also create their own applets and link their smart devices within any step of Domino's Tracker.  .... Domino’s is the first restaurant brand to join the IFTTT platform, the company said. ... ' 

Microsoft Flow and Buttons

In SiliconAngle: 

" ... (Microsoft) The company has also introduced something it calls Flow-compatible hardware buttons. They’re somewhat reminiscent of Amazon.com Inc.’s Dash buttons, which allow consumers to restock their supplies at the push of a button in their pantry, for example. ... 

However, Microsoft is aiming at the Internet of Things with this new update. It’s partnered with The Button Corporation and Shortcut Labs, so that businesses can install web-connected Bttns from Button Corp. in conference rooms and other locations. This should help employees to gain help when problems crop up, without needing to create a ticket or make a phone call, Microsoft said. .... " 

Microsoft Updates Flow and PowerApps

Been waiting for more about this.   This interests me because it addresses workflow and thus business process.  IFTTT does that as well, but in a somewhat restricted approach.  Still instructive.  Looking to dig deeper here in understanding how they compare.  Azure linkages.  We need more succinct ways to model business process based on flows of contextual data.

Microsoft launches updates to PowerApps and Flow    by Frederic Lardinois in TechCrunch:

" ... Microsoft’s business-centric IFTTT competitor Flow and its ‘low-code’ PowerApps platform are both getting major updates today. While these are obviously different services that solve different issues, both aim to help non-developers make better use of their existing data and services without having to write their own code. While Flow, at its core, uses the if-this-then-that model, PowerApps allows you to build your own desktop and mobile applications from scratch.

Out of those two services, Flow is still the more approachable one and with today’s update, Microsoft is adding a number of new features that make it more useful for building integrations that streamline the kind of approval workflows that are still the bane of many enterprise users. To help users build these approval processes, Flow is getting new templates and a streamlined design experience for them in this update (though it looks like this feature may not go live before the end of the week).... " 

More on Microsoft PowerApps.

More on Flow in SiliconAngle.

Microsoft Flow now Open

Microsoft’s IFTTT alternative is now open to everyone
Microsoft Flow comes out of beta and is free to use by Natt Garun .... "  In Verge: 

A Flow is an action that takes place after something else happens — like having a photo uploaded to Dropbox after emailing it to yourself. Unlike IFTTT, which lets you link two single actions with each other, Microsoft’s version can perform multiple actions in a single Flow. For example, you can choose to have a tweet containing a certain keyword trigger both a push notification and an email simultaneously instead of creating two separate recipes.


Compared to IFTTT, Flow is compatible with fewer third-party apps (58 supported apps to IFTTT’s 366). This makes sense, though, given that Flow is designed to be used at an enterprise level while IFTTT targets Internet of Things users.  ... " 

Microsoft Flow

On the arrival of Microsoft's IFTTT competitior, Flow.  Note the connection to Slack.  Examining. "... Flow works much the same way as IFTTT but focuses more heavily on integrating Microsoft's own products like Office 365 with other enterprise tools like Mailchimp and Salesforce. So if you want to get a text alert when you receive an important email or automatically post every tweet containing a specific hashtag to a specific Slack channel, you totally can. ... " 

IFTTT Recipes Can now Embed Directly in Apps

Interesting development that could drive the simple idea further, or even combine them as mini services to create 'skills'.  I have used IFTTT for some time as part of Echo voice commands.   Yet to see an example of this.

In Techcrunch:
" ... IFTTT made a name for itself as a platform for people to easily build (or pick up pre-built) scripts to automate tasks in and between various apps — say, to turn on the air conditioner using your home’s smart thermostat when your car tells it that you are 20 minutes’ drive away. Now, as part of the company’s bid to grow in ubiquity, it is taking the next natural step: instead of expecting users to find or write those recipes themselves on IFTTT, it will now allow developer partners to embed those IFTTT recipes directly in their own third-party apps.  ... " 

I also point out what seems to be a competitor to IFTTT,  Microsoft Flow.

Turning Your Mail into a Personal Assistant

Interesting piece out of the IFTTT blog. Here with GMail.   This shows a pretty trivial example of how to look at a stream like your GMail, apply some logic intelligence to it, and alert you to related needs.    I don't think the specifics of the example would be useful to me, but the idea is well presented.  Adding more complexity to the logic, algorithms, pattern matching would be useful as well.  How might Microsoft Flow work with the same idea?   A meta conversation with your email, but not a very deep one.

Microsoft Flow

Was reminded of Microsoft Flow today  (See also IFTTT)

Microsoft Flow
Work less, do more
Create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to get notifications, synchronize files, collect data, and more. 

Automate your time-consuming tasks
Set up flows that instantaneously deal with critical emails, notify the whole team whenever a work item is updated, or capture, track, and follow up with new sales leads—almost anything, all automatically. ... " 

Another IFTTT Like Tool for Automated Workflow

This has always been a good idea, surprised there has not been more competition.  Still not ready, in development.  Implications for combining IOT activity.  I would like to see more analysis inserted in such workflows, beyond just detecting and responding to signal.  This could be a way to insert an intelligent bit inside a workflow.

Microsoft has created its own IFTTT tool called Flow,  in the Verge,  By Tom Warren

If This Then That (IFTTT) is an incredibly popular tool that enables features for web services like Twitter to generate an email through automation and lots more. Microsoft appears to be working on a similar tool for businesses to create automated workflows. Twitter user h0x0d discovered Microsoft Flow, a preview service that connects a number of cloud services together.

Microsoft's Flow is designed to connect services like Twitter, Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Office 365. Microsoft lists a number of example "flows" (recipes), including the ability to generate SMS alerts from emails, pull tweets into Excel, or get Slack notifications when a file is uploaded to a Dropbox folder. You can even create flows to copy files from OneDrive for Business to SharePoint. ... "