Guide: IFTTT vs Microsoft Flow: Comparison and Review
I am sure there are several software / apps / services for most of us that are essential or at least a great help in our daily life. Managing it can be time consuming. Even with something that everyone knows like email, our apps tend to carry around up way too much of our time. But what if we could automate certain tasks based on triggers? For example, consider this scenario. “If my boss sends me an email, text me”. With Flow by Microsoft and IFTTT, we can set actions to be performed with compatible apps based on certain conditions. From receiving text messages when someone important sends you an email or turning on your smart lighting system at a specific time, these two apps aim to enable us to work smarter by automating monotonous tasks such as goal to ultimately achieve more.
Flow
Since Flow is the newcomer to the automation scene, let’s get started with it first. Flow’s goal is to create automated workflows between the apps and services we value, to reduce the amount of time we spend working. Note: Flow is currently available as what Microsoft describes as a preview that indicates there are probably a few more kinks to fix.
Although it is a relatively new service on offer, Flow makes it possible to create workflows with various well-known apps and services already used by many to increase their productivity. The full list of compatible apps / services can be viewed here.
How to build up a flow
A flow is the term given to an automated process created with Microsoft’s Flow. To create a flow, you must first point your browser to the My flows section of the website.
You can then build a flow from scratch, or you can start building a flow from a template.
Some of the available flows are as follows:
Translate non-English emails Email yourself new Tweets about a specific keyword Email me when a new item is added to a SharePoint Online list Post to Yammer if new tweets match hashtag
Those 4 examples alone provide insight into how powerful Flow is. We will walk through it though how to create a whole new flow to showcase all the different types of activities that are possible. On the My flows page, you must select Create from blank instead of Browse templates. From there you will be asked what type of flow you want to create.
Review the currently available options and select the option you want to use. For this example, we’ll examine a flow that creates a new task in Wunderlist to-do list app when an important email is delivered to your inbox.
If you’ve chosen to use a service that requires you to sign up to use it, you’ll need to go through some sort of authentication process first. After this is done, you can proceed to create your job. In our case, we were asked to select which Wunderlist list to check for new tasks. Our task required us to fill in the corresponding folder path in our email inbox and all other relevant conditions. In this case, emails with “Important” in the Subject field will be marked.
After putting up the email parameters we now need to set the parameters for Wunderlist. A task is added to the list named Guiding Tech in Wunderlist when a new email is sent. This task is given the title of the subject of the email.
After this step is complete, select Create flow and you can test it to see if it works.
A test email will be sent and we can see if each step in the flow process was successful and how long it took to complete.
Here is the task created.
This is just one type of activity that can be performed and we can already see how powerful it is. Rather than leaving replying to important emails to chance, you can have a note created automatically in Wunderlist. There are different types of different actions that can be performed and multiple conditions can be specified before an action is performed. Multiple actions can also be performed. You can also schedule flows. Flow has a variety of different options that allow users to creatively automate monotonous, time-consuming tasks.
IFTTT
IFTTT combines functionalities of different apps / services to automate tasks.
The various online services available through IFTTT are referred to as channels on the website. Currently there are more than 300 different channels available from which you can create actions to automate things. Automated tasks on IFTTT are called recipes. How does this sound compared to flows?
How to make a recipe
To create a recipe, you must first sign up for a bill. After you have completed this step, select My Recipes and click Create a Recipe.
You can now see a section of text stating whether or not it is bold. Click on it to create your recipe.
You must now select the channel you want to work with.
We will run through an example with the well-known Pocket app used to save links you want to view later.
After connecting to the app by clicking Connect, depending on the channel you select, you will need to log in to the app and set it up up authorization to use it with IFTTT. We will sit down up a recipe that triggers an action after a new item is added to Pocket.
You can now select that part of your recipe. In this example, we choose to have an email sent via Gmail when a link is added to Pocket.
This recipe will send an email with the title of the saved link as the subject of the email and the link will be included in the email. Here is the email received shortly after a link was saved.
IFTTT makes automating tasks quite easy. There are more than 300 channels to choose from. You just select the two you want to combine and use the available functionality to improve your productivity.
Conclusion
With Flow you can create very detailed processes and really dial in to what you want to automate. However, being a relatively new platform, you are limited in terms of the apps / services you can use with it. That said, it does seem to target businesses as you have to sign up with a business email. There are also plenty of apps available for use in flows such as Slack and Trello, which are commonly used by teams and businesses. IFTTT, on the other hand, covers a wider range of apps, even allowing you to do things like control a smart lighting system or even change the background of your Android device based on certain conditions. However, you are limited to one ‘if this then that’ recipe as opposed to Flow where multiple actions and conditions can be combined. If you are looking for automation specifically aimed at streamlining a business, I would say Flow is your best bet. If you want to automate some of your daily tasks, go for IFTTT. One service is not necessarily better than another. They are just better suited to different things because of the way they are designed. READ ALSO: How to Automate tasks on Windows with actions
IFTTT vs Microsoft Flow: Comparison and Review: benefits
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