{"id":1513,"date":"2020-02-12T19:31:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T19:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myfatblog.co.uk\/?p=1513"},"modified":"2020-04-24T23:54:26","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T22:54:26","slug":"using-powerautomate-deploy-powerautomate-flow-deploying-flow-sounds-like-inception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.myfatblog.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/02\/using-powerautomate-deploy-powerautomate-flow-deploying-flow-sounds-like-inception\/","title":{"rendered":"Using PowerAutomate to deploy PowerAutomate (Flow deploying Flow)… Sounds like Inception?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cobb: \u201cOnce an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve not been using Power Automate heavily in recent projects, just the odd small workflow here and there, but just recently a colleague asked me if it was possible to automate Flow Deployment.. i.e. deploy a flow with a flow?<\/p>\n

Not being 100%, I reached out to a few friends in the User Group community and Serge Luca came back very quickly and said, \u201cHave you looked at the Create Flow\u201d action in the Flow Management Connector.<\/p>\n

On the face of it, the \u201cCreate Flow\u201d action looks very simple to use, you select your environment, give it a display name, drop in a definition and give it a state of On or Off. Simples!<\/p>\n

\"clip_image002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well of course nothing is that simple and in this case it\u2019s the Flow Definition that will keep you awake. On the face of it, the definition is fairly simple JSON that complies roughly to the following:<\/p>\n

\"clip_image004\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To test this out, I used the \u201cGet Flow\u201d action to get a valid definition of a flow attached to a SharePoint Library, then took the output of this and piped it directly into the \u201cCreate Flow\u201d. This however didn\u2019t work until I realised that I needed to include the Connection References from the received flow too.<\/p>\n

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Note: Clicking on the icon to the right of the references collection drops it down to a single box for a collection reference.<\/i><\/p>\n

With all the elements in place, the flow runs perfectly, creating a new copy of the flow attached to the same SharePoint list. Ok great.. we\u2019re now getting two email alerts instead of one!<\/p>\n

The real power in this scenario now, would be to take the source Flow and to re-attach the trigger connection to a new library in a new site collection. The Scenario for this is that we\u2019re using a mixture of Site Designs and PNP to create a particular type of site and we need to include a flow on each site that is built. As flows currently do not get included in site designs, the only option is to try and do this through automation, by calling the flow after the PNP work is finished.<\/p>\n

To test this theory, I took the output of the Flow Definition step in our test email which is JSON format text and edited it in VS Code. Looking at the structure of the workflow, the only thing I need to change is a few elements in the trigger. These are:<\/p>\n

\/inputs\/path<\/p>\n

\/inputs\/queries\/folderpath<\/p>\n

I updated this with the correct new values and then pasted the whole JSON back into the \u201cCreate Flow\u201d action, only to be met with a Big red dot on the flow checker. Looking at the error it reads \u201cCorrect to include a valid reference to \u2018Get_my_profile_(V2)\u2019 for the input parameter(s) of action \u2018Create_Flow\u2019\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

But I\u2019m not using the Get Profile action in this flow? However I am using it in the source flow that we\u2019re copying. On Examination when we look at what\u2019s been pasted into the \u201cCreate Flow\u201d action, we can see that the app designer has parsed all of the text, including the parameters of the actions embedded in the workflow definition.<\/p>\n

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This had me at a bit of a loss and I toyed with the problem for a day or two before posting on the Power Platform forums and reaching out to a few people in the community. Luckily, John Liu came to my rescue and pointed to some fun he had using Geolocation for Pokemon Go! (And I love this example of using flow for fun!, click on the Tweet below to see the full trail.)<\/p>\n

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@johnnliu<\/a> I’ve seen a post of yours I think that discussed the “Create Flow” action in the Flow Management Connectors.. were you ever able to customise the definition of the flow being created? https:\/\/t.co\/z0expwCk3C<\/a> #PowerAutomate<\/a> #Flow<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Paul Hunt #MVP #Maker (@cimares) February 12, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n