Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud Tips and Tricks: Power Automate Series – Part 3: Schedule Flows

In this series of bi-monthly blogs, Western Computer shares our expertise with tips and tricks to help users work more efficiently in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud. Based on our more than 30 years in business—with 1,250+ solution implementations, including more than 350 in the cloud—we share the expertise we have accumulated to enable users to work as proficiently as possible. You can also subscribe to these blogs in our LinkedIn newsletter. 

I hope you benefitted from the first two blogs in this series adapted from my video, Unlocking Automation in Business Central with Power Automate. You can check out this video to learn about the the four types of automation offered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud in conjunction with Power Automate. You can create these automations in your environment to unlock a new set of potent tools to boost team collaboration. 

Within this four-part blog series, I further explore these workflows, highlighting their key features and demonstrating how you can use them within your daily operations. In Part 1 and Part 2, I discussed Automated Flows and Approval Flows. For Part 3, I present Scheduled Flows: 

Examples of Scheduled Flows

Of all the flow types, Scheduled Flows are one of the simplest: They basically allow you to run a set of tasks on a set schedule. 

For examples, consider the following flows:

• Every night at 9pm, check if all my customer forms have all the important fields populated; send me an e-mail if something is missing.
• Every hour, check if any inventory items are sitting in the receiving bin in the warehouse; warn managers accordingly so they can ask a warehouse employee to put the items away.
• Every 15 days, send a list of open invoices for each customer to their respective sales rep.
• Every morning, send a joke to my email! 🥸

Scheduled Flows are a Power Automate feature—you can’t manage them so easily from within Business Central. That’s because the triggers for these types of flows are not Business Central events. Rather, they’re triggered by a Recurrence action in Power Automate:

How to Create Scheduled Flows

So what does this mean, Marcelo?  

This means you need to create Scheduled Flows directly from the Power Automate website. There are two ways…

• Create a <Scheduled cloud flow>
• Use <Describe it to design it> powered by Copilot!

If you create a flow using the <Scheduled cloud flow> option, you need to be versed in how to add connectors to your flows and how to provide parameters so they behave as intended. For help with this, you can look at other flows you may have available to see how these connectors work—if you created any from my previous blog posts in this series (see links above).

If you are not familiar with how connectors work and would like to kick-start a template, you can go with the <Describe it to design it> option, powered by Microsoft Copilot. In a nutshell, you can describe in general terms what you want to happen, and Copilot then suggests a starting point for your flow. 

You can learn more about this in a previous blog on what Copilot is and how it works with Business Central. You can also check out this webinar with a demo on creating Power Automate flows.👀

Copilot In Action

Here are a couple of screenshots showing what I asked Power Automate to do in the <Describe it to design it> mode:

…and here’s what Copilot suggested:

How cool is this! 

You can now explore your options for making sure things are checked and organized on a recurring basis…

Don’t let inattentive users mess up your data!
Don’t let problematic customers have an open balance for too long!
Don’t let your boring mornings go without a joke delivered to your e-mail!

Get them all in line with Scheduled Flows 💃

In my next, and last blog of this series, I talk about Instant Flows and how you can create actions inside Business Central—without having to ask a developer to do it for you. 

Stay tuned!

To Learn More 

Western Computer offers deep expertise across the Microsoft technology stack, particularly in Dynamics 365 solutions. Our thought leaders can help you ensure your critical ERP application meets your business needs for today and beyond. For more information on how to use these Business Central tips, or for help in designing, deploying and supporting Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions, contact Western Computer today.

About the Author

Marcelo Borges has been very enthusiastic about ERP systems since the time he first experienced Microsoft Dynamics, back in 2005. He joined Western Computer in 2017 as a consultant focusing on Microsoft Dynamics solutions for customers in the finance, trading, warehousing, and distribution sectors. When advising on technology and designing solutions, Marcelo calls upon his experience of having worked on both sides of the table: as a consultant for known Microsoft Partners, and as an end-user in multiple industries.

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