Update
I delivered a demo of this blog at the Power BI DC December 2020 meetup. Below is the recording:
With the Power Platform ever changing and evolving, it can be overwhelming trying to stay up-to-date on the latest Power Platform.
Thankfully, there are some great blogs out there and with the help of Power Automate and Teams you will never miss a post from your favorite blogs.
Things You’ll Need
Before you get started, you’ll need to have Microsoft 365 subscription with Power Automate. If you don’t, you can sign up for a free trial. If you’re a developer, you can also sign up for the Microsoft 365 Developer Program.
Install Flow?
If you don’t know, Power Automate used to be called Microsoft Flow. In some parts of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem it’s still called Flow. For example, in Microsoft Teams, you can use Power Automate in your Teams client but first you have to install… Flow.
1. First, click the ellipses on the left rail
2. Then search for flow
3. Then click Flow
Then click Add
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
While you can build a flow from scratch, I recommend trying a template first. You may be pleasantly surprised that you’re not the first person solve your problem.
For today’s example, I’m going to look for a flow template that will allow me to get notified when my favorite blog gets updated
5. First, I’ll click Create. Note: you can click one of the popular Team templates showcased on the Home tab
6. Since it’s a blog, I’m going to click Social Media to view all related social media templates and
7. Voila! There’s already a template for When a new RSS feed item is published notify a Team
If it’s your first time using the RSS and/or Microsoft Teams connections,
8. You’ll need to authenticate by clicking the ellipses
9. You can also optionally (and highly recommended) update the Flow name. The default name will be the name of the template you selected.
10. Then click Continue
If you haven’t already, you’ll need the RSS link for your favorite blog. In this example, I’m going to use the official Microsoft Power Apps blog.
11. Click the Subscribe button to get the RSS feed
12. Then copy the URL of the RSS feed
Then back in Teams,
13. Past the URL into the RSS field
14. Then select the Team
15. Then select the Channel
Tip: if you don’t have one, consider creating a separate channel for this and any other blog posts
16. Then click Create flow
If successful, you’ll get this notification.
17. You can click Done, but I recommend clicking View workflow to see how the sausage is made
A Closer Look
18. Click Edit to see how this flow works
Here you can tweak the flow as needed, add additional steps.
Bonus Tip
You’ll note that this template using the Post your own adaptive card as a Flow bot to a channel action. There are several other Teams actions available and I’ll get into some of them in another blog post.
To find out more about adaptive cards, go to https://adaptivecards.io/