Step 7: Connector-centric flow

Add a flow to the agent

✅ What is a Flow?

A Flow is a Power Automate-based automation process: a workflow that runs a series of tasks in response to a specific event, such as user input from Copilot.

Key capabilities:

• Interact with external systems based on data received from Copilot
• Process business logic such as conditional branching, loops, and data transformation
• Implement work automation by connecting to various services

Flow vs Connector comparison

Summary of the key difference

• Flow = automation logic
• Connector = means of connecting to external services

In other words, a Flow defines “what to do,” and a Connector handles “where to get data from and where to send it.”

Lab

English UI screenshots, September 8, 2026. Actual captures from an English-language demo environment. The flow was authored and its actions configured, but no email was sent and no Teams message was posted — running the flow is a separate, explicitly confirmed step.

In this workshop you extend the email-sending connector scenario from Step 5 into a single flow that sends the escalation email and notifies a Teams channel about what was sent.

1. Create a Flow

From the agent Overview, select Add tool. In the Add tool dialog, choose Agent flow under Create new.

The flow designer opens with two actions already on the canvas.

• When an agent calls the flow — the trigger. You declare the flow’s input variables here.
• Respond to the agent — returns output variables to the agent after the work is done.

This scenario only needs inputs — the recipient, subject, CC and body used to send the mail and compose the Teams post. Because nothing needs to be returned, you add input variables only.

Select When an agent calls the flow, then select Add an input.

Choose the input type. Use Text for all four inputs in this workshop.

Repeat until all four inputs exist.

2. Add an action connector (email)

With the inputs in place, add the two actions the flow runs in order:

1. Send the email
2. Post a message to a Teams channel

Select the + below the trigger to open Add an action, then search for Send an email.

Under Office 365 Outlook, choose Send an email (V2). The action is added with its To, Subject and Body parameters.

To starts as a people picker, which cannot hold a variable. Select the gear icon in the upper-right of the action and choose Use dynamic content to switch it to a free-text field.

Now type / in the field. A small menu offers Insert dynamic content and Insert expression.

Select Insert dynamic content. The picker lists the variables you declared under When an agent calls the flow.

Map each parameter to the matching trigger variable:

CC is not shown by default. Select Show all advanced parameters to reveal From (Send as), CC, BCC and Attachments, then map CC the same way — switch it to dynamic content with its own gear menu first.

When the flow runs, the values the agent passes are mapped onto these parameters and the mail is sent.

3. Add an action connector (post a message to a Teams channel)

Next, post a notification to a Teams channel after the mail goes out. Select the + below the email action and search for Post message in a chat or channel.

Choose the Microsoft Teams action. It is added with Post as and Post in.

Open Post in. The options are Channel, Chat with Flow bot, Group chat and Enter custom value.

Select Channel. Team and Channel pickers appear below it.

Configure the destination as follows.

For Message, combine fixed text with a dynamic variable — type / inside the message box and use Insert dynamic content exactly as you did for the email:

A new inquiry has arrived. Please check it!

…followed by the Body variable.

When the flow is complete, select Publish at the top, then return to the agent. The published flow appears on the agent’s Overview page as a tool.

4. Apply the Flow

Open Tools. The flow you created is listed — a newly created flow that has not been renamed appears as Untitled.

Because this flow now covers the email step you configured in Step 5, first turn off the Send an email (V2) tool so the agent does not have two ways to do the same thing.

Then open the flow tool and configure it the same way you configured the connector.

Select Save, then go back to Overview and update the Instructions. The existing Instructions point escalation at the Send an email (V2) tool, so remove that reference and declare the Send email and notification flow instead.