As part of Microsoft’s push towards cloud and mobile apps, they’ve invested in several cloud-only additions to the old familiar Office apps. One of these is Flow, a trigger-based system for creating automated workflows.

作为Microsoft推动云和移动应用程序发展的一部分，他们已经对熟悉的旧Office应用程序进行了几项仅云计算的投资。 其中之一是Flow，它是用于创建自动化工作流的基于触发器的系统。

流做什么？ (What Does Flow Do?)

If you’re the kind of person who reads How-To Geek regularly, you’re probably aware of the drive for personal productivity that’s been raging for pretty much the whole millennium. Flow is Microsoft’s attempt at giving you the kind of automation for notifications, alerts, data gathering, and communication that will help you spend less time on boring but necessary admin work and more time on interesting (and productive) things.

如果您是那种经常阅读How-To Geek的人，那么您可能已经意识到在整个千年中一直在肆虐的个人生产力。 Flow是Microsoft试图为您提供通知，警报，数据收集和通信的自动化的一种尝试，它将帮助您减少无聊的时间，但需要进行必要的管理工作，而将更多的时间花费在有趣的(富有成效的)事情上。

Think of Flow as IFTTT, but with a slant towards the office rather than IoT or hardware.

将Flow视为IFTTT ，但偏向办公室而不是IoT或硬件。

Flow allows you to create “flows” (short for “workflows”) that are based on trigger events. For example, you could create a flow that would download the responses to a Microsoft Forms questionnaire to Dropbox regularly, or post a message in a Slack channel if a Visual Studio build fails.

流允许您基于触发事件创建“流”(“工作流”的缩写)。 例如，您可以创建一个流，该流将把对Microsoft Forms问卷的响应定期下载到Dropbox，或者如果Visual Studio构建失败，则在Slack通道中发布消息。

有人可以使用吗？ (Can Anybody Use It?)

Anybody can use Flow if they sign up for a free Microsoft account. People with an Office 365 subscription can also use Flow, but they get much the same functionality as people with a free Microsoft account.

只要注册免费的Microsoft帐户，任何人都可以使用Flow。 拥有Office 365订阅的人也可以使用Flow，但是他们获得的功能与拥有免费Microsoft帐户的人大致相同。

Flow also comes with business versions of Office 365 and Dynamics 365, but different subscription levels get different versions of flow that match up with the paid and free accounts. It’s a bit confusing, but you can check out the details on Microsoft’s pricing page.

Flow也随附Office 365和Dynamics 365的商业版本，但是不同的订阅级别将获得与付费和免费帐户匹配的不同版本的Flow。 这有点令人困惑，但是您可以在Microsoft的定价页面上查看详细信息。

You can also pay for a Flow account if you plan to use more than the free account allows. There are three pricing plans:

如果您打算使用免费帐户所允许的金额以外的流量帐户，也可以支付费用。 有三种定价方案：

• Flow Free: The free plan lets you create unlimited flows, but you only get 750 runs per month and checks happen every 15 minutes.免费流量：免费计划可让您创建无限流量，但每月仅获得750次运行，每15分钟检查一次。
• Flow Plan 1: This plan runs $5 per month. You get 4500 runs per month and checks happen every three minutes. You also get some premium connectors to services like MailChimp and Salesforce.流量计划1：该计划每月收费5美元。 您每月可获得4500次运行，并且每三分钟进行一次检查。 您还将获得一些类似于MailChimp和Salesforce之类的服务的高级连接器。
• Flow Plan 2: This plan runs $15 per month. You get 15,000 runs per month and checks happen every minute. You get the same premium connectors provided by Flow Plan 1, and you also get access to organization policy settings and several business process flows.流量计划2：该计划每月收费15美元。 您每月可获得15,000次跑步，每分钟进行一次检查。 您将获得流程计划1提供的相同高级连接器，还可以访问组织策略设置和多个业务流程。

You can sign up for a free trial for 90 days to one of the paid plans, which should be long enough to find out if it’s worth shelling out the money.

您可以注册其中一项付费计划的90天免费试用版，该期限应足够长，以找出是否值得掏出钱。

我该怎么办？ (What Can I Do With Flow?)

Flow is all about taking away the annoyance of tasks that a computer could be doing for you instead. This could be as simple as getting an email alert when someone modifies a file in Dropbox or as complex as a multi-step workflow with approvals, alerts, and notifications that’s based on a Power BI analysis of real-time data.

流程就是消除计算机可能为您执行的繁琐任务。 这可能像有人在Dropbox中修改文件时收到电子邮件警报一样简单，也可能像基于Power BI实时数据分析的具有批准，警报和通知的多步骤工作流一样复杂。

You can create three main types of flow:

您可以创建三种主要类型的流：

• Automated: A flow triggered automatically by an event, like an email arriving or a file changing.

  自动化：由事件自动触发的流程，例如电子邮件到达或文件更改。

• Button: A flow triggered manually by a button you press.

  按钮：您按下的按钮手动触发的流程。

• Scheduled: A flow that runs at a set time, either once or as a recurring action.

  预定的：在指定时间运行一次的流，该流一次或作为重复动作。

Enterprise users on a paid plan also have access to business process flows, which guide staff through steps for data entry, with the ability to trigger further flows based on the data.

付费计划中的企业用户还可以访问业务流程，该流程可指导员工完成数据输入步骤，并能够根据数据触发更多流程。

It’s often hard to think of ways you’d use this sort of tool, so Microsoft has provided a large number of templates you can pick from, some of them designed for specific situations (productivity, sales, software development, etc.) and the rest of them using specific connectors. A connector is a link between Flow and another application.

通常很难考虑使用这种工具的方式，因此Microsoft提供了许多模板供您选择，其中一些模板是为特定情况(生产力，销售，软件开发等)设计的。其余使用特定的连接器。 连接器是Flow与另一个应用程序之间的链接。

There are connectors for a large number of applications, including every Microsoft application with a SAAS interface (including GitHub), along with connectors for Slack, Dropbox, Gmail, MailChimp, Jira, Twitter, BaseCamp, and dozens more. Some of them are only available for premium (i.e., paid) customers, but most of these are enterprise services like BitBucket and Salesforce which you wouldn’t need as a personal user. There are also connectors for protocols like FTP and RSS. In total there are connectors for 323 applications and protocols at the time of writing, and you can write your own if you need a different one.

有连接器的大量应用，包括用SAAS接口(包括GitHub的)每个Microsoft应用程序，以及接头松弛，Dropbox的，Gmail中，MailChimp，吉拉，微博大本营，和几十个 。 其中一些仅适用于高级(即付费)客户，但其中大多数是企业服务，例如BitBucket和Salesforce，您个人不需要这些服务。 还有用于FTP和RSS之类协议的连接器。 在编写本文时，总共有323个应用程序和协议的连接器，如果需要其他连接器，则可以编写自己的连接器。

流程比IFTTT更好吗？ (Is Flow Better Than IFTTT?)

The answer to that depends on what you need from them. Flow is more enterprise- and software-focused; IFTTT is more user and IoT-focused. If you want your lights to turn on in response to a Slack message, IFTTT is your best bet. If you want a SharePoint list to be updated every time someone responds to a survey you created, Flow is the better option. They’re both good at what they do, and for some tasks, you can happily use either.

答案取决于您从他们那里得到什么。 Flow更加注重企业和软件。 IFTTT更加注重用户和物联网。 如果您希望响应Slack消息而打开灯，那么IFTTT是您最好的选择。 如果您希望每次有人回答您创建的调查时都更新SharePoint列表，则Flow是更好的选择。 他们都擅长于自己的工作，并且对于某些任务，您可以很高兴地使用它们。

翻译自: https://www.howtogeek.com/404854/what-is-microsoft-flow/