Schedule flows
Create a flow that performs one or more tasks (such as sending a report in email):
once a day, an hour, or a minute
on a date that you specify
after a number of days, hours, or minutes that you specify
Create a recurring flow
1. Sign in to Power Automate, and then select My flows in the top navigation
bar.
2. Select Create from blank.
3. In the Search all connectors and triggers box, type Recurrence, and then
select Schedule - Recurrence.
4. In the Recurrence dialog box, specify how often you want the flow to run.
For example, specify 2 under Interval and Week under Frequency if you want
the flow to run every two weeks.
Specify advanced options
1. Follow the steps in the previous section, and then select Show advanced
options.
Note: These options change based on the values to
which Interval and Frequency are set. If your screen doesn't match the graphic
below, make sure that Interval and Frequency are set to the same values that
the graphic shows.
2. Select a Time zone to specify whether the Start time reflects a local time
zone, Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), etc.
3. Specify a Start time in this format:
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ
4. If you specified Day under Frequency, specify the time of day when the flow
should run.
5. If you specified Week under Frequency, specify the day or days of the week
on which the flow should run and the time or times of day when the flow
should run.
For example, configure the options as shown to start a flow no sooner than
noon (Pacific time) on Monday, January 1, 2018, and run it every two weeks on
Tuesdays at 5:30p (Pacific time).
6. Add the action or actions that you want the flow to take, as Create a flow from
scratch describes.
Delay a flow
1. Sign in to Power Automate, and then select My flows in the top navigation
bar.
2. Select Create from blank.
3. Specify an event as Create a flow from scratch describes.
4. Select New step, and then select Add an action.
5. In the list of actions, do either of the following:
o Select Delay, specify a Count, and specify a Unit of time such as
second, minute, or hour.
o Select Delay until, and then specify a date in this format.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ
Use the apply to each action in Power
Automate to process a list of items
periodically
Many triggers can immediately start a flow based on an event such as when a new
email arrives in your inbox. These triggers are great, but sometimes you want to run
a flow that queries a data source on a predefined schedule, taking certain actions
based on the properties of the items in the data source. To do this, your flow can be
started on a schedule (such as once per day) and use a loop action such as Apply to
each to process a list of items. For example, you could use Apply to each to update
records from a database or list of items from Microsoft SharePoint.
In this walk-through, we'll create a flow that runs every 15 minutes and does the
following:
1. Gets the last 10 unread messages in your Office 365 Outlook Inbox.
2. Checks each of the 10 messages to confirm if any has meet now in the
subject.
3. Checks if the email is from your boss or was sent with high importance.
4. Sends a push notification and marks as read any email that has meet now in
the subject and is either from your boss or was sent with high importance.
This diagram shows the details of the flow we'll create in this walk-through:
Prerequisites
Here are the requirements for successfully performing the steps in this walk-through:
An account that's registered to use Power Automate.
An Office 365 Outlook account.
The Power Automate mobile app for Android, iOS, or Windows Phone.
Connections to Office 365 Outlook and the push notification service.
Create a flow
1. Sign into Power Automate:
2. Select the My flows tab, and then create a flow from a blank:
3. Enter "schedule" into the search box to search for all services and triggers that
are related to scheduling.
4. Select the Schedule - Recurrence trigger to indicate that your flow will run on
a schedule that you'll provide next:
5. Set the schedule to run every 15 minutes:
6. Select + New step, Add an action, and then type outlook into the search
box to search for all actions related to Microsoft Outlook.
7. Select the Office 365 Outlook - Get emails action:
8. This will open the Get emails card. Configure the Get emails card to select
the top 10 unread emails from the Inbox folder. Don't include attachments
because they won't be used in the flow:
Note
So far, you've created a simple flow that gets some emails from your inbox.
These emails will be returned in an array; the Apply to each action requires an
array, so this is exactly what's needed.
Add actions and conditions
1. Select + New step, More, and then Add an apply to each action:
2. Insert the Body token into the Select an output from previous steps box on
the Apply to each card. This pulls in the body of the emails to be used in
the Apply to each action:
3. Select Add a condition:
4. Configure the Condition card to search the subject of each email for the
words "meet now":
o Insert the Subject token into the Object Name box.
o Select contains in the Relationship list.
o Enter meet now into the Value box.
5. Select More, and then select Add a condition from the IF YES, DO
NOTHING branch. This opens the Condition 2 card; configure that card like
this:
o Insert the Importance token into the Object Name box.
o Select is equal to in the Relationship list.
o Enter High into the Value box.
6. Select Add an action under the IF YES, DO NOTHING section. This will open
the Choose an action card, where you'll define what should happen if the
search condition (the meet now email was sent with high importance) is true:
7. Search for notification, and then select the Notifications - Send me a
mobile notification action:
8. On the Send me a mobile notification card, provide the details for the push
notification that will be sent if the subject of an email contains "meet now", and
then select Add an action:
9. Enter read as the search term, and then select the Office 365 Outlook - Mark
as read action. This will mark each email as read after the push notification is
sent:
10. Add the Message Id token to the Message Id box of the Mark as read card.
You may need to select See more to find the Message Id token. This indicates
the Id of the message that will be marked as read:
11. Going back to the Condition 2 card, on the IF NO, DO NOTHING branch:
o Select Add an action, and then type get manager into the search box.
o Select the Office 365 Users - Get manager action from the search
results list.
o Enter your full email address into the User box of the Get
Manager card.
12. Select More, and then select Add a condition from the IF NO branch. This
opens the Condition 3 card; configure the card to check if the email sender's
email address (the From token) is the same as your boss' email address (the
Email token):
o Insert the From token into the Object Name box.
o Select contains in the Relationship list.
o Enter Email token into the Value box.
13. Select Add an action under the IF YES, DO NOTHING section of
the Condition 3 card. This will open the IF YES card, where you'll define what
should happen if the search condition (the email was sent from your boss) is
true:
14. Search for notification, and then select the Notifications - Send me a
mobile notification action:
15. On the Send me a mobile notification 2 card, provide the details for the
push notification that will be sent if the email is from your boss, and then
select Add an action:
16. Add the Office 365 Outlook - Mark as read action. This will mark each email
as read after the push notification is sent:
17. Add the Message Id token to the Mark as read 2 card. You may need to
select See more to find the Message Id token. This indicates the Id of the
message that will be marked as read:
18. Name your flow, and then create it:
If you followed along, your flow should look similar to this diagram:
Run the flow
1. Send yourself a high-importance email that includes meet now in the subject
(or have someone in your organization send you such an email).
2. Confirm the email is in your inbox and it's unread.
3. Sign into Power Automate, select My flows, and then select Run now:
4. Select Run flow to confirm you really want to run the flow:
5. After a few moments you should see the results of the successful run:
View results of the run
Now that you've run the flow successfully, you should receive the push notification
on your mobile device.
1. Open the Power Automate app on your mobile device, and then select
the Activity tab. You'll see the push notification about the meeting:
2. To see the full contents of the notification, you may have to select the
notification. You'll see the full notification, similar to this:
Note
If you don't receive the push notification, confirm that your mobile device has a
working data connection.
