What

We’ve always sprinkled a little fun and creativity in our office tech.  And thanks in part to some inspiration from my friend Tom Hudock who challenged several of us dads to a “thriving fathers” Facebook challenge to be more active every day, I took it upon myself to repurpose some of our existing office tech that was previously leveraging some older (and more expensive solutions, such as Nintex) and replaced them with a simple but effective Microsoft Flow solution.

The goal? Play with Microsoft Flow, solve a simple problem and help others (get fit).

So What

Introducing the “Office Plank Light”.  Much like our “itgroove Support Orb“, we’ve found another creative use for our IP connected electrical outlet Power Controller (seen here on Amazon, though I’m sure there are newer alternatives 4 years later if you are shopping today…).

It’s a pretty simple recipe actually:

1. Plug a light into the IP Power Switch
2. Create a Flow that switches the light on every day at 10am (and 2pm), waits 5 minutes and turns it off again
3. Listen for the groans in the office and watch everyone drop and do 15 pushups and 90 seconds of planking. And we keep pushing those numbers up every few days!

Here’s The Flow(s)

Click the images for bigger versions…

Yep, I could have accomplished this with one single flow but I opted to separate them for now as I may extend the purpose and I liked the two separately managed schedules.

Now What

Get your office leveraging Flow, get creative with your technology and start planking.  Challenge Issued!