Business Process Flows: Tutorial for Beginners
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
- This tutorial covers business process flows in model-driven Power Apps and Dynamics 365 - what they are, when and why to use them, and how to build them, using conditional branching. I also cover how to order process flows on a table, set security roles for access to business process flows, building business process flows across multiple tables, and triggering flows and workflows from your business process flow.
Contents:
00:00 - What is a business process flow?
01:13 - Business process flow demo
02:54 - How to build a business process flow - stages and steps
07:50 - Stage gating a business process flow - make a field required
08:30 - Multiple business process flows on a table, ordering business process flows
09:07 - Set security roles for access to business process flows
09:38 - Activate the business process flow
10:13 - Add a business process flow to a solution and a model-driven app
11:26 - Switch processes
12:23 - Build a business process flow across multiple tables
15:50 - Build a business process flow with conditions and branching
20:20 - Add nested conditional branches to a business process flow
23:44 - Validate a business process flow and fix errors
24:35 - Why isn't my business process flow showing on my record?
25:06 - Business process flow across multiple tables - demo
26:49 - Business process flow with conditions - demo
28:06 - Trigger cloud flows and workflows from your business process flow
34:22 - Summary
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Connect with me:
☕ Buy me a coffee: www.buymeacoffee.com/lisacrosbie
🦉 Learn more about AI: aka.ms/learnwithlisa
🖇 LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-crosbie/
📼 TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@lisa.crosbie
🐦 X (Twitter): twitter.com/LisaCrosbie
📚Take my LinkedIn Learning Course: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals (PL-900) Exam: Power Apps www.linkedin.com/learning/microsoft-power-platform-fundamentals-pl-900-cert-prep-power-apps/
Thanks for the idea of running a flow from the milestones. It's a bit more intuitive than telling someone to click on the Flows on the Main Grid.
I have just come across this channel and the content is stunning. Thank you Lisa for sharing all these valuable material.
Brilliant, filled in the blanks on the learning Microsoft learning path - make so much more sense when I can see it in action like this! Great work, please do keep it up!
Thanks so much for the encouragement, fully intend to keep it up, great to know it helps make sense of things, thank you.
Simple Brilliant, just what is needed! THANK YOU
Lisa, you are such a great teacher👍
Hi Lisa I am application manager for Dynamics CRM and I would like to thank you warmly for all these amazing video tutorials you posted. It helps beyond imagination ! Merci beaucoup from France !!!!!!
Thank you very much for this clear and straightforward video. BPF's seemed quite confusing, but now I can't wait to make my first one.
Excellent, so glad to have been able to help.
Loved the advice to click-save for conditionals at about 16:20. That important nugget of information saved my sanity.
So glad to hear that, it's really not intuitive and it feels like you've missed something! Happy to have saved you the pain.
simple and easy to understand tutorial on business process flow. Thank you!
Thank you Lisa for your contribution to the community
Thanks for watching.
Very helpful tutorial. Thanks for bringing the tutorial example into the context of the Power Apps solutions.
That's great feedback, thanks so much, and very glad it was helpful for you
Hi Lisa, thanks much for posting these great tutorials. Great learning for citizen developers.
My pleasure, thanks so much Sandra.
Thanks Lisa. 2 years later it's still helpful
You are a very good instructor. God sent. Thank you.
Thanks so much
Thank you so much! It was really helpful
yeah this was a great tutorial thankyou - not the easiest material to present but it was very slick.
Every video makes to watch further videos. Easy to learn. Thanks to you & Microsoft.
Glad to hear that, thank you.
Excellent tutorial - bring em comming :)
Very helpful, love your videos!
Thank you so much Leah, really appreciate that.
Amazing video! Thanks, Lisa!
Thanks so much!
Great video. Thank you.
Excellent tutorial. Thank you.😀
Thanks so much and thanks for watching Jagjit.
I keep coming back to this video as its just a great reference. Brilliant work. Would you be creating an advance version of this at some point and include other capabilities, such as workflows and action step?
Thanks, but no, those advanced topics aren’t on my list at this stage.
Thank you very very much Lisa 💯💯 this is very nice and helpful for novices like us
My pleasure, thank you Raja 😊
Very useful Lisa!
Glad it was helpful, thanks Emilio
You are a rockstar! Thanks a lot for this video.
Thanks for watching!
Great Video Lisa!!
Thank you!!
Awesome video. Better than Microsoft documentation!
Love your video and Presentation style. I love everyone I see. Thanking you with some $.
Thank you so much, very generous of you, appreciate that 😊
Thank you thank you thank you!! I do love the Microsoft help documentation but it can get quite dry. This was very helpful!
You're welcome, thanks for watching and so glad to have been able to help.
Excellent!
great video!
Great information. Thank you. Wish I had watched it before starting to build out a BPF. Can you cover off permissions and privileges in Dataverse and environments and solutions. Thanks again.
Great video
Great tutorial. Very helpful. I am curious how you made the main form, the one when you hit "new" to still be read-only and then get populated by completing the quck-view form in the stage timeline? Is it possible to specify which Form is chosen when the NEW button is clicked on? (Or can I remove the "NEW" entirely and just use the "+" button from the upper-right to open the quickcreate side form?) Also, can you do a video where you combine these business process stages with Business rules? I could really use some insight in how they work together and when to use one vs. the other. Thanks.
Clearly you are very passionate about this subject with a great deal of experience, added to this the excellent articulation of your demo makes for a very helpful and insightful tutorial. Thank you. PS: As of August 2022, you can no longer create or manage business process flows from Power Automate outside of the solution explorer. Business process flows and instances continue to be supported through the solution explorer, Power Apps, and Dataverse table views.
Thanks for the update Craig, that's really helpful.
Ohh the fun working with evergreen platforms. 🤣It's been several years since I created my last BPF. Here's the new (current) way of create a BPF:
Within the solution, select New > Automation > Process > Business process flow.
1. Give your flow a Display name and Name (LogicalName).
2. Select the table from which the flow will be used.
3. Select Create.
Much better, thanks very much @@PianoDentist
You speak English slowly. Thanks for that, my understanding English is not so good. But in this speed of speaking, i understand well. Thousands thanks therefore 🙏🏻
Thank you so much, that makes me very happy to hear that you can follow.
Great Video @lisa, you are my go to person for PowerApp.. it helps a lot.. can you please direct me to the part where we can automate the table linkage so the stage transmission is smoother..
Brilliant
Your videos have really helped me understand Power Platform and pass my PL-900 exam, thank you.
I do have one question about Business Process Flows, and that’s how do I manage parallel steps which need to be taken by different teams? Designing the process as linear is really inefficient in some circumstances when activities can be performed at the same time.
Thanks John, so glad to hear you've passed your PL-900 and that I helped in some way, very much appreciate that. Your question about linear flows is interesting, BPFs don't really do that. You could certainly create multiple tasks under a stage and assign them to different teams. Can you give me more detail about your use case and I'll give this some more thought.
@@LisaCrosbie I have a similar business requirement, if there are any link regarding, creating multiple tasks under a stage and assign them to different teams, that would be really great. thank you for your content.
easy and helpful.
when in the workflow move from one stage to the other that includes a different data table, it is required to create a related record in the second table, you mentioned that we can create automation to do that action so the move to the next stage will be smooth, can you please elaborate, give hints on the way to do it?
Regards,
thanks Lisa
A very helpful tutorial. Can you give more information about conditions. I have requirement where I need to use both AND and OR statements in same conditions, but seems BPF allow only one condition to be used.
Yes, unfortunately it's not sophisticated enough to do that combination of logic.
Nice Video Very helpful
Glad it helped, thanks Javed.
Hi Lisa, thanks for this great video. Is there any way to have the 'Next Stage' button appear before the new record is saved?
Hello Lisa, thanks for this nice tutorial ... i built an immersive BPF with 5 stages ... if i stop the process for example at the second stage and save it i cant edit it again when i open it at the menu with the active flows because i only see the first stage and not the bar of the process in the top ... can you help me please
Hi Lisa, Great Videos! it really helps me understand more clearly about both BPF and model-driven apps.
I have one question though: Do you know how to Stage-gate so that the user can only continue with the subsequent stages if the Approval cloud flow returns an Approved result? Thanks!
I've got this on my list of videos to make, stay tuned. The simplest way to do this is to have the approval column as a choice column with only one value - Approved. The default is blank. Then make that field mandatory, which will stage gate the business process flow. If you want that approval column to have other values - like rejected - then you can create a second Yes/No column and make that mandatory. In your flow set the value of that to Yes when the approval is valid. When a yes/no column is required, it will stage gate the BPF until the value is Yes.
Great video. I have a question if I need to move back in the business workflow is it mandatory to meet the criteria set for the next stage? Or is there a workaround to move back in the stage without having to meet the pre-req of the next stage?
Great tutorial Lisa, definitely something I'd always be getting back to when I experiment on BPFs. Question, in around 31:00 you showed the Dynamics 365 workflow. If our company is not using D365, do we need to go through this specific step?
Thanks so much. The Workflows are just one of the tools available, it's not something you need to use, you can have BPFs without using it at all.
very interesting Lisa! could you make a video for power automate?
Indeed, yes, it's on my list :-)
Hi Lisa, first of all I would love to thank you for your amazing tutorials.
Second, I don’t know why I can’t find the BFS tab in Flows, even I’m the global administrator.
I tried to get an answer but no one helped me with that.
Things have moved around a fair bit since I recorded this video, you're right, it's not there any more now. You now need to navigate to Solutions (in either Power Automate or Power Apps), then open your solution, and you'll find it under +New>Automation>Process>Business Process Flow
Hello Lisa, thank you for this tutorial. This is super helpful. I have a question that I am hoping you can help me with. If I trigger a cloud flow from a BPF and send an email as part of the cloud flow, can I use fields from the tables associated with the BPF as dynamic content in the email? If a BPF is associated with a table that looks up other tables, can fields from the looked up tables be used as dynamic content in this way? Cheers
Yes, you can do that. It's all done in Power Automate so whatever table you use for the trigger, you already have that there for dynamic content. You'd need to use "Get Row by ID" to get related tables and then you can use that for dynamic content as well. I think I'll need to do a video on this!
10:15 This step has changed a bit since the video was recorded. Now you can create the flow in the solution from the start. You just need to add it to the app by opening the app and then select it in the Automation tab.
Thanks for adding the update to help others. 😊
Hi Lisa, thanks for the tutorial. It seems that business process flows helps a user navigate through a series of stages.
However, it doesn’t seem to have the ability reallocate responsibility to different users/teams at different stages. In this example, you may want to ‘lock’ the plan stage to a different user group. (Apologies if I’m wrong!)
Also, is it possible to change the page content at each stage for data input or can it only be done via the dropdown when clicking on the stage? It may be hard to view if there are many input fields required at a stage gate.
Great tutorial, it is possible to trigger more than once a business process flow in a row of a Dataverse table ?
Yes, you can create multiple business process flows for a table and then use the "process - switch process" option in the toolbar to select which one to use. You can only use one at a time on a particular record though. If you want them automatically assigned that needs some code.
Lisa, very nice work.
I have a situation where i need to block the button to come back a stage, is this can be done natively or need JS?? Or even if it is possible to use JS??
thank you that was useful, please how to make a field in Business Process Flow "read only" ?
Unfortunately you can't use the normal "read only" the way you do on a form but you can use Business Rules to lock the field - I show it in my video here czcams.com/video/0tNQLj7uKwQ/video.html
Hi Lisa, thank very much for the videos. Just one question, am I able to reverse the BPF? Where step 4 is not satisfied with work done in step 2 and approval to proceed to step 5 is not granted until it goes back to step 2 for correction then proceeds step 3 >> step 4, etc. Thanks
Hi Lisa - Great video . Thanks for that. I was wondering if we could leverage the usage of a BPF table that gets created each time we create a BPF. Would love to understand a few use cases too.
The BPF has its own table but you don’t really use it except in Power Automate for some automation. You mostly use the table the BPF is connected to. What are you trying to achieve?
@@LisaCrosbie I was trying to figure out whats the purpose of the BPF table as its visible in the BPF details section and also under tables. So it made me wonder, why does it exist and what use cases can it be used for?
Great Video ! I have similar BPF where I want to select from a dropdown in a stage from another table rather than making a new entry. Any idea how to select instead new entry form ?
The only way to add another table in the business process flow is to use a lookup column (lookup and connect to another table), would that work?
Hi Lisa, thank you for the very detailed flow! Question though, is there a specific security role that I need to enable for "Contributors" to have access to the Conditional stage? It seems to be working on my admin account and it reads the stage correctly. But on other accounts, the condition isn't working. Any ideas?
TIA
You need to set the security roles that have access to the business process flow, but there isn't a separate security setting for the conditional branching. The only other thing that might be an issue is the field that is used for the condition, do all the users have the correct access to that?
Hi Lisa great tutorial, this helped me.
But I'd like to ask you a question. How can I show a toggle instead of yes / no in the business process flows?
You can, but it's a bit fiddly - you'll find the documentation here docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/custom-controls-business-process-flows
Hi Lisa, Great video. I have BPF set in dynamic 365 which is meant to populate a form I've created in dynamics. The form is created and the BPF is ready. My problem is how I can establish the connection to the third party document. And oh I can take the customer inputs in MS Forms too. My challenge is that, when I create a new process under Processes I don't see the option to start an automated flow with the connectors. I don't know if my question is clear
I'm not entirely clear on your question, and I think you have multiple questions so I will do my best. The answer is Power Automate, that allows you to connect to other systems. To connect to or create a third party document you will need to use a document generation tool in Power Automate - Word is a good starting point if it's not complex. To get data from Microsoft forms into your app you also use Power Automate - trigger when a form is submitted, then action - Dataverse connector. Hope that helps.
Great content. 'Give it a burl' you said at 23 min roughly. Love it. 😁 I hope to - though I'd like to understand the licence pricing (not very clear in documentation I've read). Are the Makers (like our BA Team) the ones charged extra, or would this apply to other users contributing to data entry, approvals, etc?
That's my very Australian turn of phrase! To use business process flows, you are working with a model-driven app - all users who work with the app will need a premium Power Apps license.
@@LisaCrosbie Thanks Lisa - being Aussie myself I picked up on that. :)
Thank you so much. But How do I get current user in model driven app to compare with a column that look up to User table?
You can get the current user (and then their manager) using the Office 365 connector in Power Automate, and trigger that from a model-driven app / business process flow. There are also some suggestions here that might be a better fit for your use case; powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Dataverse/Current-User-Name-and-Email-Id-in-Model-Driven-Application/td-p/1407769
Love this, but how do I create an advanced find view to filter and view each stage in opportunities?
thanks Felicia, you might find this video helpful: czcams.com/video/1SEtK6cTcEo/video.html
Otherwise keep watching, I have another video planned on advanced find.
Hi Lisa,
Have you thought about having a github repository for some of the tutorials?
Thanks, more than I can get to at this stage, but I'll keep it as a good idea for future, thanks
Can u make a circular business process flow like go back if denied and start flow again, i know we can update stage using workflow , but it runs in the back ground
Great tutorial Lisa.
1. I have not found any documentation or material around the BPF indicating active timer on the bpf. Is that data point accessible to the user for reporting?
2. When you go to campaign stage, it forces you to create a new record every time. It does not fetch any records to select if there is a campaign that you would create directly from the opportunity and not the BPF stage itself. I am looking to automate the stage movement based on certain data fields but this seems to not work!
A response would be much appreciated!
Thanks
Thanks so much. In answer to your questions:
1) The active time on the BPF is always displayed for the current stage, but if you want to record the time spent historically on previous stages then you need to do some configuration - set up columns to receive that which get a time and date stamp as you move from one stage to the next.
2) I don't really understand your question sorry - there is no campaign stage here. This whole BFP is built on a custom table called campaign. If you are working with opportunities, you could have a BPF on opportunity that had a lookup to campaign which would allow you to select and existing campaign. If you want to automate the movement of stages you can do that using a workflow - some instructions here, I haven't done a video on this yet community.dynamics.com/crm/f/microsoft-dynamics-crm-forum/375366/bpf-stage-change-based-on-workflow
Thank you! I just made my first BP flow. However, for some reason it isnt showing up on the form by default. I have to go to the process tab at the top and select it. Otherwise it doesnt show a flow at all. Any idea what i might have done wrong?
It won't go back and apply it to existing records automatically but it should come up when you create a new record?
@@LisaCrosbie ah I see, thank you
Hi, do you know when you create the business flow, you can see the data in tables. Can you embed that table data within Sahrepoint lists for example. Thanks
No, the data here is all in Dataverse, you can't build this with SharePoint lists.
Hello Lisa, How can we update a field with current date when a user has completed a stage in BPF workflow?
Hi Pavan, it's not simple to do on change of the stage, but this video shows how to do it based on update of a column *skip to the chapter at 9:50 czcams.com/video/Q0d1SGYAseI/video.html
So the way I understand it, business process flow only works with model driven apps? So if I were to implement both, I have to buy Power Apps and Power Automate license, correct?
Yes and no. You're right that you an only implement a business process flow in a model driven app.. However once you've paid for Power Apps licensing to build model driven apps, that includes some licensing for Power Automate, so you don't have to have a separate licence to create the business process flows.
What's the technique to have the workflow automatically progress if the required fields have been populated? Trying to reduce my user's clicks.
BEEST!!!
Thanks!
Hi. I don´t know what happens on 9:37. I open the role window but there´s no way to save the chosen ones. How can you save them? Thanks.
I guess you have solved this by now but for everyone else: You need to click the name of the role. Now a new window open. Then go to the Business Process Flow tab and find the name of the process in the list. Set the required security level and save.
How to make the box with text scroll across the bottom of the screen?
Good videos Lisa, but this one is confusing and not really for beginners - where/how do I setup the dataverse table?
This is the one you want to start with - genuinely for complete beginners. Then I also have a playlist on model driven apps going through each part in the next level of depth. Power Apps Model-Driven Apps: Tutorial for Complete Beginners
czcams.com/video/sRoRrteFkuQ/video.html
I’m getting a message saying don’t have the right permissions. What “role” do I need to be assigned to create this type of power app please?
Any idea why Flow Step is still in preview 2 years after this video? I rely on it and would be in a lot of trouble if they decided to deprecate it
Lisa, a query, how can a row of a table be made read-only according to the value of a column of the table, for example if it is Closed, the row is not editable from the form, Thanks !!!
You would use Power Automate - your trigger is when a Dataverse row is updated (filter by that column), then update a row (same row from the trigger) - you'll find the Status column in that update action, change it to Inactive. Deactivating a record makes it read only, no further edits allowed
@@LisaCrosbie muchas gracias !!!!
My bookmarks
Making something mandatory (Stage Gating): 07:57
How do you Advance the Process Bar automatically after all your fields are all filled, instead of clicking next?
It doesn't do that automatically out of the box, you'd need to set up a flow in Power Automate to move to the next stage automatically based on the previous steps being completed.
Is it possible to use other data sources like SharePoint instead of Table in BPF?
No, this is built on Dataverse and is part of the model driven app. None of that works with SharePoint.
@@LisaCrosbie Apart from model driven app, is it possible to use BPF with canvas app.
Please help ! I can not find the 'Business Process Flows.
Hi Lisa, do you offer support one on one?
Sorry, no, I don’t.
whay i dont have tab buisness process flows ?
I couldn't get email to send using workflow. Workflow status showed Succeeded, but there was no email. The server profile has Microsoft Exchange Online selected. Could you please advise if I'm missing something?
Sorry, that's too hard for me to troubleshoot here. You might want to try in the Dynamics 365 community forum.
Can we business process flow in canavas apps?
You can create similar things but no, this doesn’t go into a canvas app in the same way.
its an incomplete in flow action of approval or rejected,thanks
You might find this helpful czcams.com/video/Q0d1SGYAseI/video.html
What does the Categories do? They seem to have no effect?
They are useful if you want to map your BPF to a pipeline report or chart, otherwise they aren’t useful.
iam nt getting locks on stages ? wht can be the reason
You only see the locks on stages if the business process flow goes across multiple tables (entities). If you go from Lead to Opportunity, when you are on Lead, the stages on opportunity will show locked.Then when you move through to opportunity the stages on Lead will show locked. If you just build a business process flow on one table you won't see the locks.
where is Business Process flow as it is not where in my app from where i can get it?
Anyone guide me how to change the color and.logo of Bussiness process flow to.power apps
Carl de Souza has done a great blog post on it here carldesouza.com/change-the-color-of-business-process-flows-to-power-apps-purple/
@@LisaCrosbie thank you so much Thanks alot this is Very helpful but i this blog there is only color changing material How i can change the logo So If u dont mind When i stuck In Problem where i can message u?
didnt show what to do after selecting security roles
I really don’t understand why you’d want to use this. Seems like a fancy checklist.
I guess you could think of it that way although it’s more structured and flexible than that, guiding the user in context through stages, you can trigger automated actions, set stage gates, conditional branching and do reporting and analysis based on the stages. But in the end you are essentially providing your user with steps and tasks to do, yes.
Tbh, it's all understandable, but the fact that it's not possible to immediately build inside an existing flow and need to make all those side steps, makes it still not very intuitive for me. It seems that even though you'll get used to the way of working, MS still manages to make it more cumbersome than needed.
Unfortunately this part of the build is still using a “classic” interface from at least 10 years ago, and it’s a big contrast from how easy the new experiences are to use, for sure. I’m hoping this will get an upgrade sometime soon.