The Need:
You need to make Flow easier to manage on a day-to-day basis. This post will suggest some strategies to make designing and monitoring specific flows less overwhelming.
"Copy to Clipboard"
You may design a flow with multiple versions of a step, or with multiple steps that are very similar to each other. Instead of adding each step by hand, use the "Copy to Clipboard" function, which acts like a copy/paste.
Click on the three dots at the right side of the step.
Click on "+ New Step" to open the Choose an operation box. To the right, above the operation filters, you will see "My Clipboard." Click on "My Clipboard" to see the step that you saved to the clipboard.
Rename steps for easy reference
As you can see in the above picture, these steps have very similar names, distinguished only by a number after the standard title. Rename the steps to save time in the future when you need to update your Flow. In the example below, the first email goes to an approver when an item is created on a list. If the approver changes or you find a typo in your message, it will be much easier to identify which email needs the change if you have labeled each step descriptively.
NOTE: I keep the original name of a step. It helps to have that if you are sharing the flow or copying it for another purpose. Some special characters will not be allowed.
Speaking of copying flows for other purposes... "Save As"!
A lot of useful options are launched from the flow detail page. Find the flow detail page by clicking on the flow name in the My Flows list.
Flow details page
"Save As" is at the top of the page. Click it to open a window that lets you rename the copy. The copy will be turned off/disabled until you open and activate it (so you don't have to worry about triggering duplicate processes).
Use a custom flow name/title as an organizational tool.
Microsoft Flow is wonderful, but it has some upsetting omissions. for example, you cannot sort your flows. The most recently edited flow appears at the top of the list and that is that. Put categories and keywords in your flow names so you can more quickly identify the ones you want to monitor or update in the Search. The search does a pretty goood job at filtering; usually when I cannot find a flow it is because I am misremembering whether it is a personal or a shared flow, or I forgot what keywords I put in the title.
NOTE: You really should put some thought into your naming conventions before you have too many of them. You'll have just a few when you start, but you'll find your comfort level and hit a critical mass and then find yourself scrolling through dozens of flow names to find the one you want. I usually start with the process or list name, double hyphen, and then a list of key actions. Names can be very long. Use as many characters as you need. Flow names are not the place to be efficient; you need them to be effective.
You can change the name of a flow at any time. The name is at the top of the Edit flow screen; click on the name to open the text box and enter the name that you want. Don't forget to click Save after!
Add co-owners to your flow.
Any flow used for department-level processes (vs. personal productivity) should have at least one co-owner. If the creator of the flow leaves your organization, a co-owner will still have full access to all the steps and history, so nothing will screech to a halt in one person's absence. Add co-owners by clicking "Edit" in the "Owners" box to the right of the screen.
NOTE: When a flow creator/original owner leaves the organization, some of the flow connections might break. The new owner will have to edit the flow, click the three boxes to the right of key steps, and log into the flow with a current "connection." This mostly affects email alerts and SharePoint lists that have special permissions.
Monitor and troubleshoot flows with the 28-day run history.
Each time your flow is triggered or runs, that flow instance will appear on the flow run history. It looks like it is just a list, but each date/time is a hyperlink you can click to see the flow map and the success or failure of each step. The flow details page only shows the most recent occurrences; you can click on "All runs" at the top of the list to see the past four weeks of flows, and whether each one succeeded or failed. Long story short: Click "All runs," click on the flow run in question, follow the map to see if it worked the way you wanted it to, read the error messages to find out where it went wrong. (There is a huge amount of very useful information here--a whole blog's worth, in fact!--and I will dive deeper into this topic on July 26.)
Finally... leave a note INSIDE A FLOW STEP!
If you share or copy more complex flows, especially if you use a lot of expressions in condition boxes, it is handy to leave notes about right in the flow step box. These notes will remind you of unusual or tricky exceptions, or provide information to new users or process managers that is inconvenient to access in other documentation.
Access the "Add a note" option by clicking the three dots to the right of the flow step box.
It's not a perfect system, because the note is not visible until you open the flow step; you could, however, add a note in the flow name/title about the note!
Click the three dots to edit the note, or click the X to delete the note.
A note on a text:
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. In which a girl seeks advice and reads literature about how to manage her flow.
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