15 ms·
Microsoft Flow
- daw___ 10y agoAny clues on why the site asks to uniquely identify my phone?
- based2 10y agohttp://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/15-1719P-01A.pdf http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/15-1719P-01A.pdf
- pella 10y agoa new IFTTT competitor. more alternatives: * https://github.com/pjf/exobrain https://github.com/pjf/exobrain * https://github.com/cantino/huginn/ https://github.com/cantino/huginn/ * https://github.com/bipio-server/bipio https://github.com/bipio-server/bipio * https://github.com/ottawaruby/whenbot https://github.com/ottawaruby/whenbot
- Perixoog 10y agoIs there anything that both has an android client and is open source?
- anc84 10y agoAlso https://github.com/node-red/node-red https://github.com/node-red/node-red , comes ootb on Raspbian.
- tootie 10y agoWasn't this called Yahoo Pipes in 2008?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- blazespin 10y agoYeah, but this one will integrate pretty well with visual studio
- alexed 10y agoThe Fr8 Company is at http://www.fr8.co http://www.fr8.co. They're going to make a bunch of their code available as open source shortly.
- apeace 10y agoAnother popular option is: https://zapier.com/ https://zapier.com/
- pella 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11594951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11594951
- based2 10y agohttp://www.automator.us/leopard/index.html http://www.automator.us/leopard/index.html
- chinathrow 10y agoA new Zapier competitor (happy paying customer here).
- tacos 10y agoIf this Microsoft thing then that Microsoft thing.
- wmccullough 10y agoDid you actually read it? It has integration with a ton of non-Microsoft products?
- tacos 10y agoIf you're going to be pedantic over an obvious joke, then at least be more specific than "a ton." Total service breadth (11) is presently countable on fingers while naked.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- spdustin 10y agoJust ... Just take off a shoe, man.
- tyingq 10y ago>Total service breadth (11) is presently countable on fingers I tried, but it keeps overflowing the data type. Edit: There are actually 31 services: http://imgur.com/a/NR7Af http://imgur.com/a/NR7Af
- trentmb 10y agoDo you have really big fingers?
- hadrien01 10y agoMicrosoft already created (and abandoned) a IFTTT competitor in 2012: http://onx.ms http://onx.ms
- tyingq 10y ago"on{X} lets you control and extend the capabilities of your Android phone using a JavaScript API to remotely program it." Perhaps in the same space, but that's a very specific sub-niche. This new offering looks more like an actual competitor.
- nippur72 10y agoyeah, I still have it installed on my phone, it was a great tool, I can't believe MS abandoned it and now it's reinventing a less cool version of it :-(
- g051051 10y agoIt says it's a free service and doesn't directly mention any restrictions, but when you try to sign up it will only accept something it thinks is a work or school email address. So I guess self-employed people who use Gmail don't count?
- huac 10y agoassume they're doing a soft launch with o365 for business customers before full launch
- spdustin 10y agoIt's been turned on for some time now. Just no marketing push that I've seen. Quietly hidden away on Azure under another name, IIRC. It's early still, though, and my memory is going a bit. :)
- clamanna 10y agoThe earlier offering was Azure Logic Apps, which is different than Microsoft Flow. Logic Apps is offered as part of Azure and is targeted at developers and IT shops. Logic Apps are much more about heavy weight integration (e.g. business-to-business communications, back-office connectivity to SAP), akin to Biztalk. Details here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-service-logic-what-are-logic-apps/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app... On the other hand, Flow is aimed at business end users with light weight connectivity / automation needs (e.g. the examples in the video on the home page). It does not have support for a lot of things devs or IT need, like source control, monitoring, scripting, etc. Disclaimer: did dev work for both. Hope that helps!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 10y agoIt looks like they are just trying to limit abuse during a rollout. Forcing a "work" or "school" email to try and hold back anonymous signups. You can pre check an email with their embedded ajax call: https://flow.microsoft.com/providers/Internal.User/users/user@example.com/getType https://flow.microsoft.com/providers/Internal.User/users/use... If the JSON comes back with "consumerDomain":true, then it won't allow the signup. They don't seem to be catching all free email services. At the moment, it appears you could sign up for a free Yandex email and get signed up for Flow: https://flow.microsoft.com/providers/Internal.User/users/some.username@yandex.com/getType https://flow.microsoft.com/providers/Internal.User/users/som...
- Touche 10y agoIf the developers are reading this, when I watch the video in Opera and make it full screen the video doesn't stay centered and I can only see half of it. It's falling off the left side of the page.
- PapaSlug 10y agoAlso on iPad (Safari)
- arsalanb 10y agoMicrosoft always gives the vibe of a company that is desperate to salvage some pride from its glory days. It was once a giant, but now they're on the brink of redundancy, in terms of being viewed as "innovative". This opinion may be controversial to many, but it is what a lot of people are thinking. They experiment, which is phenomenal. But none of those experiments have been a major hit. Apple has flagship products like the iPhone, etc. Google has search, Android, and even Youtube at the center of its existence. A fallback option, if you please. Mircosoft "somewhat" has Windows, but hasn't really nailed it yet. These "experiments" will not bring back the glory days.
- FLUX-YOU 10y ago>It was once a giant, but now they're on the brink of redundancy Pretty sure they're doing okay in enterprise office software
- solipsism 10y agoLet's say, for argument's sake, that everything you say is true. So what? Are you giving investment advice? Or warning us from seeking employment? I know the popularity of bashing MS hasn't waned. Maybe it's even deserved. But how's it relevant to this post?
- g051051 10y agoWhen have they ever been considered innovative? Virtually every successful product has been either copied from or bought outright from another company. The only real exception I can think of is OneNote (which preceded EverNote by 5 years).
- soared 10y agoWho would you actually consider to be innovative then?
- atonse 10y agoOk I'll feed the troll. I've excitedly watched what Apple has done in the last 10 years (and exclusively use Apple devices in my home, and have convinced many family members to switch). But as a technologist who likes to see companies with great resources move fast, to me MS has been much more exciting lately as a tech company than Apple. We are seeing the manifestation of the new Satya Nadella decree, which went from "prop up Windows at any cost" to just "build stuff people like." We're constantly seeing these kinds of things come out of MS now, and I can't help but see that it must be a really exciting time to be an MS employee right now, judging by the sheer amount of experimentation going on.
- tyingq 10y agoThey have more integrations than are showing on the home page, but the only way to see the full list is to sign up. I uploaded some screen shots showing the available services/integrations: http://imgur.com/a/NR7Af http://imgur.com/a/NR7Af
- toyg 10y agoDev A: "So, what other integrations should we add?" Dev B: "What about Skype? It's one of our products." Dev A: "I don't care, I only use Slack. Screw our users, right?" Dev B: "What about Skype for Business? People actually pay for that." Dev A: "Nah, Wunderlist is much more important. Much."
- rossng 10y agoJudging by the state of the various Skype apps, I suspect that getting anything added to Skype is a kafkaesque nightmare. I bet these guys just let it drop in order to get their product released.
- toyg 10y agoLast time I checked, the main problem with regular Skype was being registered and accredited by MS as a legit app. One would expect MS would trust itself... Skype For Business / Lync is a total nightmare of enterprisey permission models, yeah.
- clamanna 10y agoThere are 35+ services supported today, with new ones planned each week for quite some time. Also, it is possible to register your own REST APIs and share them with others in your organization. Within Microsoft, we have a lot of internal custom APIs registered to light up some interesting automations / flows. Details here: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/tutorials/register-custom-api/ https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/tutorials/register-cus... Disclaimer: am a dev on the team
- chris_wot 10y agoThere used to be a tool called conduit, part of Gnome. It was pretty amazing, in fact pretty much did DropBox before Dropbox but also synced everything and allowed for custom actions. Could have been a killer app for Gnome, but Gnome decided that redesigning the notifications area and the clock was more important.
- jhwhite 10y agoWhy would I use Flow over IFTTT?
- toyg 10y agoBecause it will (or rather should) better tie into MS properties like Sharepoint, Office365, Azure and so on, which lots of people already use for work. This said, they completely ignored Skype, so...
- badmiskallc 10y agoMS is iterating on skype web versions and and apis for skype and lync (skype for business). I'm sure it will come in time.
- skocznymroczny 10y agoGood thing they picked up a unique name that won't collide with any other similar named projects.
- AnkhMorporkian 10y agoThey obviously did some type checking on the name[1]. I'm sure they Squared up the UI elements while they were developing it[2]. The moments before launch must have been pretty tense though[3]. I just hope this service supports file uploads[4]. 1. https://github.com/facebook/flow https://github.com/facebook/flow 2. https://github.com/square/flow https://github.com/square/flow 3. https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow 4. https://github.com/flowjs/flow.js https://github.com/flowjs/flow.js
- toyg 10y agoThey probably used FTP while developing [5] and a lot of online chatting [6]. [5] http://fivedetails.com/flow/ http://fivedetails.com/flow/ [6] https://www.getflow.com/apps/ https://www.getflow.com/apps/
- chris_wot 10y agoTo get it done, they would have used project management [7] whilst management decided on EDI integration suites. [8] 7. https://www.getflow.com https://www.getflow.com 8. http://www.flowsoftware.com http://www.flowsoftware.com
- vehementi 10y agoDo you think they were a little bitter about Slack and probably used a competitor [9] instead? 9. https://www.flowdock.com/ https://www.flowdock.com/
- kenrick95 10y agoThis too https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Flow https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Flow
- justsaysmthng 10y agoJust watched the "how it works" video and I'm less than impressed (can anything impress me these days?). "Why constantly check e-mail when you can get a text message when anyone important e-mails you..." Actually, I receive a push notification whenever I receive an email. I'd hate to receive SMS messages instead of e-mails. --- "Say someone tweets something about your company. Set up a flow that follows them, sends a nice reply, adds him to a spreadsheet which then gets sent to Salesforce". Yeah, so someone tweets "YourCompany fucking sucks!" and now the flow automatically follows him, sends a ridiculous "nice reply" and adds an obviously unsatisfied customer (or whatever) to the CRM.. --- "Working smarter, so you can work less and do more", I think I've heard this promise a thousand times before. I don't know about the Flow service, but the ad video is quite dumb and uninspired, just like the background music.. who composes all these identical tech ad songs ?
- CamatHN 10y agoYou might be right in the certain situations but this is an open tool with a wide array of possible uses for people. Such a pessimistic approach doesn't allow for any exploration when think about its potential uses.
- justsaysmthng 10y agoFrankly, I don't really care. Really. It might be the greatest tool ever created.. There's too much great software and not enough head space to fit it all in. This proliferation of tools and services hasn't achieved the proverbial "work less do more" which all of them promise. They are necessary in order to deal with the increased complexity of technology (and our lives), but the catch is - once we integrate them into our work(life)flow, we add another layer of complexity and hence give up even more control to third parties. I guess this is why Flow has been created, but the catch is the same - once you integrate it, you add another layer of tweaking and twiddling until it all becomes a monster with a life of its own. There was an article here on HN yesterday - 'you probably don't need any js lib for your project' and I totally agree with the author. We can live without layers upon layers of complexity, albeit with a bit more 'manual' work - we have to reduce it rather than try to build meta layers on top of existing ones. Sorry for the gloomy mood, I guess it's the weather.
- mlvljr 10y agoMisread ad "Miscrosoft Flaw". Then read the comments :)
- stonedge 10y agoTo me, this looks like their own implementation of the Azure Logic Apps product. (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-service-logic-what-are-logic-apps/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app...). I don't believe this is intended to be a consumer level product at all. In that sense, it's not an IFTTT competitor. Given it's got implementation points to Sql Azure, Azure Blob storage, swagger, etc. this is likely meant as a product for devs to use to hook-up integrations.
- tyingq 10y agoI think you're right...the available services list looks very similar to what's available in Flow: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/apis-list/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/api...
- sheraz 10y agoExactly what I was going to say. I setup some logic apps but never really dug into this much beyond their demos. Following on the heels of this will be Azure's Functions (Serverless/Lambda) architecture, which will overlap some things here (for devs).
- crandycodes 10y ago/* I'm a PM on Azure Functions */ Logic Apps and Flow are done by the same team, actually, so that's no surprise. Logic Apps is for "Azure" users, which is mostly IT Pros and Dev. Flow is intended to compliment Power Apps. They can both be built by users aren't necessarily pro devs, but can use a drag-n-drop interface for configuring things. Functions are code driven by events. Logic Apps are workflow driven by events. You can actually use the two together, which makes for some cool scenarios.
- jszymborski 10y agoWould love to see an IFTT.com integration :P
- piyushco 10y agoLooks like Microsoft is making zapier / ifttt.
- meesterdude 10y agoyet another stupid and uninformative $company_name + $company_product title. Better title: "Microsoft Flow: Automation Workflow and Task automation"
- blazespin 10y agoI don't get it, what's the problem? Just google "Microsoft Flow". Seems fine to me.
- blue_dinner 10y agoI wonder what this means for ITTT?
- blazespin 10y agowell, I'm sure IFTTT is more nimble than Microsoft and can leverage that by focusing on specific high margin verticals, though Kudos to MSFT for sure. I do love how clued in MSFT is these days. Really raises the bar for everyone.
- slantaclaus 10y agoPretty cool feature macs have had for over 10 years
- blazespin 10y agoI really hate how MSFT doesn't always respect its own SSO. Jeebus. I can't login with my live account. It's free, but you have to use a work/school account. Really?
- sdfjkl 10y agoMicrosoft Automator?
- dbarlett 10y agoIt's not mentioned on the landing page, but Flow integrates with PowerApps [1]. The PowerApps console shows Flows [2], and PowerApps can trigger Flows [3]. [1] https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/ https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/ [2] http://i.imgur.com/dKxw9Tz.png http://i.imgur.com/dKxw9Tz.png [3] http://i.imgur.com/UjJ7Bcg.png http://i.imgur.com/UjJ7Bcg.png