Describe it to design it. Natural language flow generation in Power Automate. THAT is pretty cool. Microsoft describes this functionality as one that “transforms your words into a cloud flow like magic.” And indeed it IS magical. When it works, which for now is limited.
It reminds me of when Microsoft rolled out the ability to convert an image into an app (preview) via “express design.” It was buggy at first, then became more awesome and continues to improve.
I played around with the new natural language builder for Power Automate that you can find at flow.microsft.com. I dove right in, without reading documentation, to take a quick test-drive. Here’s what I’ve learned:
- Today, this is only supported with select Microsoft 365 first-party apps and Teams.
- It supports multiple actions.
- It saves a ton of time getting started.
- You’ll need to use the standard Power Automate flow builder to pull in dynamic content and specific certain action attributes.
Video: Getting started with Power Automate’s Natural Language Builder
Can you simply describe it to design it? Check out the video below to see 3 examples:
- I wanted to use the Gravity Forms trigger. It wasn’t found – because only first party connectors are currently supported. (I wanted to simplify creating this flow!)
- I used first party connectors: Outlook & Teams. It worked well!
- I used first party connectors with 3 actions. It works very well!
The next time I play around with “describe it to design it” functionality – I will see if conditionals are supported. Do you think it will work?? I do not.
FAQs & Documentation for “Describe it to design it”
Here is the complete Microsoft documentation on this new preview feature.
Only English. There are no details on whether/when that will expand to other languages.
According to the documentation link above, it works for: Excel, MS Forms, Outlook, OneDrive for Business, Planner, SharePoint and Teams.
Today, you can only create cloud flows with this technology.