Sending Custom Actionable Messages via Flow

Actionable Messages is a way that we can send a small bit of JSON within an email message, it gets picked up by Outlook (Web, App, Desktop, Mobile) and parsed as quick actions, or a way to collect additional information.

We can easily create Actionable Messages with Microsoft Flow, and this will extend our ability to build "disconnected human workflows"

Plan

• Use MessageCard Playground to build our JSON
• Send Actionable Message via Microsoft Flow as HTML embed

Message Card Playground

https://messagecardplayground.azurewebsites.net/

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Use Message Card Playground to quickly try a few templates and see the JSON we need to build.  

Microsoft Flow's "Send with Options" as well as "Approval" actions use Actionable Messages - you can see the templates that's used.

Build a custom message with Flow

The Flow is quite simple.  A trigger, build a custom HTML string, then Send Mail with HTML.

My test compose has this JSON

 <script type="application/ld+json">{
    "@context": "http://schema.org/extensions",
    "@type": "MessageCard",
    "originator": "Provider-id-from-developer-dashboard",
    "hideOriginalBody": "true",
    "themeColor": "0072C6",

 "sections": [
        {

            "heroImage": {
                "image": "https://minecraft.net/static/pages/img/addons-feature.8b0a274be963.png",
                "title": "This is the image's alternate text"
            },

    "title": "John how are your Flow and Minecraft doing?",
    "text": "Click **Learn More** to learn more about Actionable Messages!",
}],
    "potentialAction": [
      {
        "@type": "ActionCard",
        "name": "Send Feedback",
        "inputs": [
          {
            "@type": "TextInput",
            "id": "feedback",
            "isMultiline": true,
            "title": "It is doing great!"
          }
        ],
        "actions": [
          {
            "@type": "HttpPOST",
            "name": "Send Feedback",
            "isPrimary": true,
            "target": "http://..."
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "@type": "OpenUri",
        "name": "Learn More",
        "targets": [
          { "os": "default", "uri": "https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/actionable-messages" }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
  </script>
<p>
Hello, please take an action.
</p>

A few notes - I did not register this JSON, so I'm only sending this to myself for testing.  This will ONLY work within my current tenant and internal email addresses.

Additionally, this doesn't seem to work on mobile Outlook.  I assume if I'm taking this to mobile I will need to submit and register the action.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/actionable-messages/actionable-email-dev-dashboard

Make sure Send Email sends HTML

Results

I receive this in my Outlook (Web) mailbox.

What can we build with this?

In the JSON for Potential Action - we can specify HttpPost actions.  This is idea to chain into a new Flow action and start a new step.

I think about the "Pick your own adventure books".  Each time this runs, it presents me with the next chapter of the story, with buttons that lets me choose what's the next step to take to continue my journey.

So this is another piece of the tool that we can mix into our toolset.  

Difference between beta, edu and v1.0 of MSGraph #microblog

I find this interesting - source: digging around MicrosoftTeams powershell and Mikael Svenson's blog post on enabling Teams programmatically. 

What's funny, because what I found strange is when Mikael says this:

The creation of the group itself happens against the /edu/groups which I’ve never seen before, but that’s not interesting.

Because that's the bit I found totally interesting.  Why does the PowerShell need the /edu/ endpoint?
Hop over to Graph Explorer we can play with this:

Comparing different endpoint: v1.0

endpoint: beta

endpoint: edu

It becomes clear why we need the /edu/ endpoint.  It has this bit of information:

"creationOptions": [
    "SkypeSpaces",
    "ExchangeProvisioningFlags:481"
],

The hint that a Team is provisioned seems to be the flag "SkypeSpaces"

Interesting.

Naturally, one would ask.  So if I want to enable Yammer, Planner or PowerBI on an existing Unified Group.  Do I POST an update to creationOptions?

Very.  Interesting.

I'm speaking about Serverless Flow and Azure Functions at Collab365 Free Online Conference

Have you heard about the virtual Collab365 Global Conference 2017 that’s streaming online November 1st – 2nd?

Join me and 120 other speakers from around the world who will be bringing you the very latest content around SharePoint, Office 365, Flow, PowerApps, Azure, OneDrive for Business and of course the increasingly popular Microsoft Teams. The event is produced by the Collab365 Community and is entirely free to attend.

Places are limited to 5000 so be quick and register now.

During the conference I'd love you to watch my session which is called : 

'Serverless with Microsoft Flow and Azure Functions'

Level up your mastery of Microsoft Flow. Switch to Azure Functions only when you need to. No doubt there will be many sessions on Microsoft Flow, introducing you to its wonderful merits and rough edges. This session is for the advanced users - we will see what Microsoft Flow really is, and bend it to our will.

If you join me, you will learn:

• Master JSON in a Flow
• Combining Azure Functions with Flow
• Failure Recovery, in a Flow
• How to handle Binary in a Flow
• How to write HTML and generate PDF in Flow

Topic(s):

• Azure Functions
• Microsoft Flow

Audience :

• Developer
• Power User

Time :

• Thursday, November 2 2017 10:00 AM (UTC)
• Thursday, November 2 2017 09:00 PM (ADST)

How to attend :

1. Register here.
2. At the time listed above go here to watch my session. (you can also add me to your own personal planner from the agenda.
3. Enjoy the demos and ask me questions, I'll put the templates up for download after the session.

From Office 365 to Azure to Minecraft, connected with Flow

"John, what's this headline."
This is just a love serenade to Microsoft's many engineers and teams.  Thank you, for making these products that makes these things look easy.

Thank you for showing the world what One Microsoft might look like when everything works together.

Plan

1. Minecraft Windows 10 edition in the latest 1.2 (better together update) included web sockets previously only in the Minecraft Education version.  Web Sockets lets you connect to a Minecraft game, and remotely execute commands.
2. Minecraft Code Connection is an external application that hosts a friendly REST API and translates JSON to web socket.  Previously this was only for Minecraft Education Edition.  An update in early October allows this to work with Minecraft Windows 10.
   https://makecode.com/blog/minecraft/10-18-2017
3. Microsoft Data Gateway allows Flow, PowerApps, PowerBI to talk to on-premises environments.  It also recently gained the ability to execute custom connections.  It is essentially, an enterprise data gateway / reverse proxy that connects your local environment to an Azure Service Bus.  The ability to call your custom local REST endpoint was released in September.
   https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/q3-2017-update/
4. Cloud based services like Flow/LogicApps, PowerApps, and PowerBI can talk to this connection online, via the magic of Azure Service Bus.
5. And because I'm a SharePoint MVP - we are triggering this Flow from SharePoint Online.  Because the world needs this.

Setting up Minecraft & Code Connection

https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/store/p/minecraft-for-windows-10/9nblggh2jhxj?rtc=1 
Buy or download Minecraft for Windows 10

https://education.minecraft.net/get-started/download/
Download Minecraft Code Connection

https://education.minecraft.net/support/knowledge-base/code-connection-api-documentation/
The API for the JSON messages to send to Code Connection is here.
 

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Code Connection uses Minecraft commands - the option is called "activate cheats" - do this in a creative world.

Code Connection is a separate executable.  Run it outside of Minecraft - it'll ask you to enter the command into Minecraft

Use Postman to test your localhost:8080 and send a REST request.  You'll see your agent bot move.

Congrats - you now have a REST endpoint that can send game commands to your Minecraft game.

Setting up Flow Data Gateway

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/gateway-reference/ 

The data gateway also calls your local REST endpoints via a custom connector.  This was a feature that was silently released in the deluge of news from MSIgnite.  I need to thank @pratapladhani (PowerApps PM) for sending me the link of the announce.  It is REALLY obscure.

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/q3-2017-update/

“On-premises connectivity to any HTTP API - Finally, users can now connect their own on-premises APIs with Custom Connectors - leveraging the On-Premises Data Gateway. For example, if you have a service that’s only available on your local network, you can now author a custom connector that can read data from or push data to that local service.”

Congrats - this is your reverse proxy.

Setting up custom connection via this Swagger File I've prepared for you

https://github.com/johnnliu/flow/blob/master/mc-cc.swagger.json 

Grab this swagger.json and add a custom connection to Flow

Note the host is localhost:8080
Tick: Connect via on-premise data gateway

Note the custom connection swagger file points to localhost:8080 - this will work if your data gateway is on the same machine as the Code Connection exe.  Otherwise, you should use the LAN IP Address of the Code Connection server.

Add a  connection, and select On-Premises data gateway

Note the connection type is "On-premises"

Write my Flow

These wonderful methods with dropdowns are defined in Swagger file.  It's hard work.  Contributions welcome!

Trigger it from Office 365 / SharePoint

Hi bot agent

Uploaded by John Liu on 2017-10-25.

Code-Less

I want you to understand, all these are done, without me writing a single line of C# or JavaScript.

Cost?

Office 365 E3+ license allows you to have:

• 2000 Flow runs per user
• 1 Custom Connection
• On-Premises data gateway allowed

https://australia.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/ 

So there's no extra cost for an Office 365 customer E3+

Summary Key Points

• Minecraft Win10 has websockets
• Code Connection does JSON to websocket
• Data Gateway is amazing, also calls your local REST endpoints
• Microsoft Flow just unlocks it to the rest of the world, if you like, LogicApps will work just as well.
• You can have a PowerApp calling the function via the Custom Connection, without Flow.
• Extremely code-less

Where do we go next?

Well, when I detect an Active Directory User deletion via webhook - I'm going to teleport this Zombie Villager into lava.

Update: I can't see a use case for this

So, some people have commented to me directly - John this is very cute, but there's no business use case for this.

Let me explain the head-fake

Flow can reach into your organization and call any of your REST endpoints with no code

Microsoft Flow blog posted https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/on-premise-apis/ explaining how you can build your own on-premises API service and call it from Flow via the data gateway.  I was bothering them with explanations for the data gateway and I think they were ready to publish anyway, they told me they'll share it in a few days.

I beat them slightly to publish since I worked out how to do the Minecraft bit.

I also think they need more imagination.  Minecraft is a hundred times better example and I didn't even have to write a REST service ;-)

<3

Flow Admin Center - Do a spring cleaning of your Flows

I spewed coffee all over my screen.

Each user in Office 365 gets 2000 Flow runs pooled.  This is my personal playground tenant, I've got 10 users licenses but it's really just me running around sending Flows to myself, and I.

So, I'm looking around Flow Admin center.  I see a tab Quotas.  I clicked on it and sees oh it's got a bar telling me how many runs left.  That's good.

Then I see the number: 6500+ runs.

I chocked.  What.  I run a number of Flows but really NOT that many.  Is that lifetime total?  It's per month.  OK.  We need to interrupt everything and sort this out.

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So hmm, it does look peculiar.  (BTW, I don't know how 8000+4000 = 6500)

But I do want to go into these two examples:

First Bad Thing: Scheduled Recurrence

Sometimes, I use a Recurrence trigger to test something - and it default to 1 per minute.  I had changed this to 5, but this was way too often.  

TIP: Always run test Flows via a HTTP Request Trigger - poke it with Postman instead.

Second Bad Thing: Infinity Loops

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This one is can be in different forms.  But the idea is simple - you trigger from a SharePoint list item, and you update that same item.

The more tricker version to spot is if the update was hidden within a Conditional Block, so it only "sometimes" trigger, but not all the time.  The problem is, that sometimes started happening, and now it's looping endlessly without telling you about it.

You get the idea.  This second one was worse than the first problem - this one clocked in 8000 runs on its own.

Only you can save Yourself (and your Free runs)

I'm sure Flow product team will be thrilled if you don't check your Flows.

But you might not be.  So you need to proactively do the next step.

We create a new recurring monthly Flow that creates a TODO task to review the Flow Admin Quotas.

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This logic is perfect*
If you see the error, let me know in the comments ;-)

I've been working on an epic Flow story and that's gonna take some time.  But this short episode was too good not to write up.  It is now Friday 7 PM so I'm signing off have a great weekend everyone.