Introduction to Microsoft Flow and Azure FunctionsOr fast cycle development

By: Vincent Biret

Vincent Biret

Passionate about development, community and technologies

@baywetbit.ly/vince365

MVP Office Servers and ServicesAzure and Office 365 developer @ 2toLead

Often we think we need more than what we actually need and end up over-designing

Fact – development can get complex

That’s, and other causes, leads to spending way more than we thought

Fact – costs increase rapidly

Workflows and SharePoint always has been a love and hate story

Your experience?

• Customizing SharePoint Workflows with SPD?

• Developing WF with Visual Studio?

• Maintaining a WF infrastructure?

Let’s try to find better and more enjoyable tools that’ll make us more productive

Why this session?

• SharePoint workflows are a complicated thing

• Limited to SharePoint

• Software development is costly

• Reusing what already exists

Users build flows, developers extend capabilities with Azure Functions

The Team

Users Devs

Agenda

• Demo (“beer locator” solution)

• Introduction to Microsoft Flow

• Introduction to Azure Functions

• Conclusion

Dynamic interactions, don’t be afraid to ask questions, I’ll ask you questions as well

Ready?

Beer locator solution

Update metadata

Obtain the manager

Send approval email

Approbation?

Notify approbation

Determine an agent

SMS Notification

yes

Tweet

“broken bridges” solution

Demo

Or workflows that actually work

Microsoft Flow

Cloud based solution for workflows provided by Microsoft with or without Office 365

Description

• User based workflow solution

• Connectors based (extensible)

• Web editor

• You can leverage on prem data via a gateway

• Steps based concept

• Numerous templates already available

171 connectors to date, most of them are free (might require a service purchase), some require a premium license

Some Services

The Approbation flow

Demo

You can either use it for free, have it as part of your office 365 plan or add it to it

Pricing

Good for 80% of the workloads, I’d avoid it for mission critical workflows for now

Some remarks

• NEW: performances are guaranteed for paid tiers

• NEW: retry policies

• User based execution context

• NEW: import/export as template or logic app

• Inconstancies Folder/SPItem

Devs have multiple ways to integrate, from the one-deal integration to the ISV

What about the devs?

• WebHooks to start the flows

• Private API’s => use of swagger + AAD app

• Public API’s => Swagger/OpenAPI => flowdev@microsoft.com

• Catalog => Iframes + URL params system or SDK JS

Or focusing on what matters

Azure Functions

Microsoft’s response to the serverless opening market, allowing you to run code and just not care.

Azure Functions

• Run « pieces of code »

• Focus on code, nothing else

• Supported by Azure App Service/WebJobs

• .NET is .net standard• backed by runtime 4.7 for now• soon by asp.net core / dotnet core

• NEW: now available in most of the regions

• PREVIEW: integration with MS Graph

Multiple languages supported which lowers the entry cost as the devs in your company probably already master one or two of those

Supported langages

Functions can be triggered periodically, on events, http/webhook or using the bot framework

Triggers

Triggers/Inputs/Outputs

• One trigger per function

• Can have multiple inputs (SQL, Azure Storage, DocumentDB…)

• Can have multiple outputs (same as inputs + http, SendGrid, Twilio…)

The more control you want, the lower in the stack, the more simplicity the higher

How to chose?

f

WebJob-App Service

Cloud Service

VM

On prem

simplicity

control

SDK is still in preview but usefull to implement DevOps and more advanced scenarios

Tools

• Web Editor

• Git + Visual Studio• VS 2015 update 3 + Azure Sdk 2.9.6 + functions SDK

• VS 2017 update 3 + azure dev checked

• #r ‘’Newtonsoft.Json’’

Azure functions are making progress on the DevOps path allowing you to better control the lifecycle

Continuous integration

• Publication via web deploy

• Same as a app Service

• ARM

• NEW: Can (easily) be set up via VSTS

• NEW: Deployment slots are in preview

• **VSTS hosted agent doesn’t have Azure functions SDK for now

Functions: inspector localisation, web editor

Demo

Audit log export project in VS, CI/CD for the project

Optional Demo (if we have time)

Microsoft Graph integration with Azure Functions

Optional Demo (if we have time)

Best practices

Flow + Functions

WebHooks are probably the most straight forward way to integrate both together

Multiple integration options

• WebHooks (both ways)

• Simple API (limitations)

• API + swagger

• API + Swagger + PowerApps

I swear, I’m going to stop talking soon and let you free

Conclusion

Conclusion

• Native access to tons of services and data

• Short development cycles

• More power to users

• Time saved

• Money saved

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Thanks!/Questions?