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There are so many different apps, programs and services we use on a daily basis, or even a minute-by-minute basis. Navigating through all those different things, while important, can be annoying. Email, texts, Twitter, Slack, Google Drive and Dropbox are just a few examples, and being able to condense that list down would be a huge help.

Microsoft made Flow to do just that, allowing you to connect apps and services and automate portions of your workflow, easing the need to check each thing every minute to make sure you didn't miss anything new. You can set up notifications across platforms, sync up folders in different programs or automate software approvals.

Flow works similarly to If This Then That (IFTT), creating "recipes" between apps and services so that when certain events happen in one, something will happen in another.

With Flow, you can set up text notifications for when certain people email you, get a message in Slack when a file or folder in Dropbox is changed or added, save tweets or share them on Facebook, automatically copy files between Google Drive and Dropbox, or automatically approve new members for a MailChimp list.

Microsoft has already set up a bunch of different Flow templates you can try for yourself, which are available on the Flow website. You can easily browse through categories like "social media," "productivity" or "collect data." You can also create your own Flows using a large number of apps and programs.

Flow is currently available as a preview and is free to sign up for as long as you have a work or school Office 365 account. 

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