Emoji reactions can be used as workflow triggers in Teams chats and channels. This helps your team move faster, cut down on manual steps, and stay on top of important tasks. When you or your colleagues reply to a chat or channel message with a specific emoji, a workflow process will be triggered automatically.
For example:
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React with❗️to create a helpdesk ticket and escalate an issue.
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Use 👀 to send a message to the right channel for visibility.
There are a few ways to set up workflows from emoji reactions:
Use a template
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On the left side of Teams, select Apps
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From the Create tab, use the search bar to find workflow templates. Try searching “emoji” to find all templates that use emoji as triggers.
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Select a template.
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Follow the steps for the template to customize it. These can include:
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Naming your flow.
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Choosing which emoji you want to use.
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Choosing your reaction frequency (do you want the workflow to be triggered on every reaction or just the first one?).
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Choosing who can trigger the workflow (everyone, including guests and people outside your org, or just yourself?)
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Select the group chat(s) or channel(s) where you want the workflow to apply.
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Select Create flow.
Tip: For an emoji reaction to trigger a workflow in both a group chat and a channel, set up separate workflows for each.
Create a workflow from scratch
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On the left side of Teams, select Apps
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Select +New flow > + Create from blank.
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Search for When someone reacted to a message in chat.
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Fill out the fields to customize your workflow. You can specify chat or channel under Message type.
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Select + New step to add the action you want the emoji reaction to trigger and fill out the required fields.
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Select Save.
To learn more about advanced settings and limitations of the trigger, see When someone reacted to a message in chat.
Related topics
Add or run a workflow in chats, chat messages, channels, and channel posts in Microsoft Teams
