1. Using Microsoft Flow with Power BI
As Serverless Middleware to Turbo-Boost your Power-BI
John Liu

2. About John Liu SharePoint Gurus
dev, consultant, blogger, community (Sydney & Australia)
SharePoint/O365 usergroups, Saturday, conf
FlowUG*
MVP Office Services (SharePoint)
MVP Business Solutions (Flow)
#FlowNinja

3. Plan Introduce Microsoft Flow Demos Discussions End – afternoon tea?!
What it is, what it does
Quick Demo mobile Flow
Architecture, where does it sit
Pricing
Demos
Discussions
End – afternoon tea?!

4. Architecture – what Flow really is
The story of Microsoft Flow
It is linked to Logic Apps
It is linked to BizTalk
It is linked to Azure Integration Services
It is also IFTTT/Zapier
It replaces Dynamic / SharePoint workflows

6. Demo
HTTP Request and Response
Get File
Get Football

7. Demo ETL Moving Binary Add additional cognitive services
ListDataAsStream seriously-powerful-and-free-pdf-functionality-in-powerapps-and-flow-part-1/

8. Demo – Trigger on Data Alert
meaningful-action-using-microsoft-flow-and-power-bi/

9. Demo – Push into Streaming Dataset
streaming-dataset-without-writing-any-code-using-microsoft-flow/
Demo by: Kawabata Yoshihiro

10. Numbers Data Sources:70+ Refresh: Scheduled 15mins+, LiveQuery
Power BI
Microsoft Flow
Data Sources:70+
Refresh: Scheduled 15mins+, LiveQuery
Special Powers:
Pivot (PowerQuery & DAX), Visualization, Drill in
Connectors: 200+
Refresh: Anytime you fancy
Special Powers:
Parallel, Asynchronous, Serverless, Event Driven, Low-Code processes and automation, Auth “Power-Flow”
Power-Flow is one of the codenames for Microsoft Flow – it was not the final name

11. Learning – 3 tips Data Types in Microsoft Flow (and LogicApps)
For Every Actions There Is An Output
Expressions

12. Data Types number, integer, Boolean binary, XML, JSON string
datetime string, string, url string

13. For Every Actions There Is An Output
Flow – flows data
Data doesn’t only live in variables. It lives in every action – the ActionBody()

14. Expressions “No Code” vs “Low Code” aka.ms/logicexpressions
Why do we need this? - manipulate data between actions.
variable names = [ { “name”: “John”, “age”: 39 }, { “name”: “Andrew” } ]
names[0].name
first(names).name
names[1]?.age
concat(first(names).name, ‘Liu’)
quiz

15. Expressions… do you need
Do we really need this?
e.g. Date Connector

16. Scenario Building Information Client
Pull data from Autodesk Forge BIM 360 API
C# code through SSIS – 10+hours
Parallel Flow – continuous
Free up the database server
Future – delta query – update only changes
Future – webhooks – update on demand

17. Scenario Office 365 Resource Creation and Governance
Trigger from tenant admin Office 365 Message Admin Centre & Azure AD

18. Scenario
Ticketing system from ServiceNow
PowerBI dashboard

19. Scenario – Power Family
Imagine a Power BI Dashboard
Use PowerApps as a Low Code custom visual in Power BI, select data row in Power BI and filter the PowerApps visual
Enter some data in PowerApps - when submit button clicked – send data back to Microsoft Flow to execute new actions ( , call new connectors, update data source etc)
Embed the solution anywhere you like:
Office 365, or Dynamics or your own web page

20. Demo
PowerBI Gateway for on-premises data
Minecraft

21. Summary What is Microsoft Flow
Where it might fit with your toolkit with your PowerBI Story
May be proof of concept – extreme rapid prototype & development
Internal-only dashboards – extremely fast to set up
“No Cliff Development” upsize into LogicApps, and/or add AzureFunctions
May be use this to supplement your existing Data Refresh, or integrate with DataFlow or Data Bricks
There is no one-size-fits-all prescription, but Microsoft Flow is a seriously flexible and powerful tool you already have – so you should consider diving deeper into it. “Check out the iceberg”

22. resources https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/flow/guided-learning/
@johnnliu #FlowNinja

23. Sponsors
#FlowNinja