Is there a way to create a flow to run only once in the future and then it deletes itself?
I have found myself having this need several times but has not been able to figure out how create it, if it’s even possible.
Let me give you an example from today:
I have a mower bot that is in winter hibernation at the moment. It’s stored in its charging station tucked away under a staircase going down to your basement. I have the charging station connected to mains power through a Zigbee plug and have set up a flow that turns on the plug for two hours once a month for top up charging of the battery. This works fine until it doesn’t. My Homey is not 100 % stable, so sometimes different coms protocol fails or Homey goes offline. If this happens when the flow is supposed to be started it obviously won’t. This happened today. For some reason the Zigbee protocol was malfunctioning and the charging did not start. I hade to restart Homey for it to start functioning normally again.
In this scenario I would like to be able to create a flow that when started turns the Zigbee plug on and after two hours turns it off again which is no problem of course. But now I have a flow that I don’t need anymore and I have to remember to delete it manually. Since the whole idea with automation is to minimise manual input I would love to be able to add a function in the flow that deletes itself when all actions have been taken.
Is this possible somehow or is this something that I should put in the “Idea and suggestions” section?
read it a few times, and really dont get it. Why you want a flow get delete after the flow is done? because then you need to make a new flow for the next time.
Thank you guys for your creative posts…however, it’s really interesting on forums like this that you can ask a simple question and get a whole lot of answers to other things.
Well, no. The hiccup was an example. As I wrote in my first post I have encountered other instances where the function I’m after would have been good to have.
No, it’s not. In my example there was a fault in the automation and I wanted to run the missed action. Sure, I could have made a flow that turned the charging on for two hours and the turned it off again, but then I would have had to remember to manually delete the flow after the two hours have passed. That is opposite of automation.
It’s not hard to imagine a situation where you write a flow with a lot of commands that you only need to run once due to a specific need you have just then. It could even be over several days or even months/years for that matter. When the scenario is over you will never need it again.
So again, thank you for your creative solutions to my example…that one has now passed (the mower is all charged up). However the thread question still remains: is there a way to get a flow to self delete when it has done its thing?
Hi,
I had a similar need to run a flow only once, at a certain time of the day. In my case, I wanted to start charging my car at that time, but only once and not every day. So I solved it by letting the flow disable itself as the last action. And if you let it send you a notification before it disables itself, then you will be reminded to delete the flow, if that is what you want.
Why don’t you trigger the flow using an alarm from the Mobile app?
After reading your description, the unstable Homey connection can happen any time in the future again. So, why do you need to delete that flow and recreate it in the future with the next failure??
“One-time flows” might be an extreme edge case. It looks like your goal is more to have a tidy list of flows in the app.
a) Create a folder for your one-time flows, and maybe use them as templates in the future
b) Combine multiple flows of a single device in one advance flow
Maybe, there’s flow/app that asks for a device and duration on launch and executes the on/off actions?
Please…the example I wrote in my first post was an example. It’s not the only instance that I have encountered when the need for a “one time only then delete”-flow has occurred.
I don’t need help solving the issue with the missed charging of my robot, it is fully charged now (which I had to do manually) and waiting for it’s next top up charging scheduled in Homey. If there is a glitch that time too it’s no problem…it will probably be charged the next scheduled time.
Yngve shows that the need for “one time only then delete”-flow is not unique for me (and I’m sure he and I are not the only ones), so why are you guys so against the suggestion for the function? If you don’t see the need for it…move along.
@paxman I have also no idea how to remove a flow automaticly but what i do is.
I have a folder in Homey called Eenmalig uitvoeren.
In that folder i made for example a flow that sends every day a Whatsapp that i must feed the dog of my neigbour.
And a flow that i should take every 8 hours my medication for 7 days.
And once in a while i throw all the flows away without watching what i am deleting.
That is my workflow for this problem.
A few times I have found myself needing to create a flow that will only be used once. I’ll refrain from giving any existing examples (since if I do some people will not be able to resist the urge to solve it in more or less creative ways that are workarounds for what I’m suggesting as a function).
So I will try to give an hypothetical example. Let’s say that I never leave my house more than a couple of days in a row and my biggest hobby is to water my house plants. However, now I’m planning to go away on a two week trip. I rig a plant watering system with a little pump that I schedule to run for 5 seconds every other day during my absence.
I would love to have a ”delete flow”-card that I can put in the flow for this watering schedule when it has run its course. WHEN ”date is” day of my arrival home THEN ”Delete flow”. Launch and forget so to say. With this function the user can create flows for one time events and never have to remember to delete them when the event is over.
I know that some of you that are reading this see no use of such a function, and that is fine. But please can I ask you not to express that opinion in this thread. Also, I’m sure that some of you have super great ways to fix the watering example I gave above…but please understand that I don’t need it solved since it’s hypothetical example (I hate my plants).
I see the need for this ”delete flow”-card, and that is fine to…and since this is the suggestions and idea category everyone should be free to post suggestions and ideas without having to defend them to other members of the forum. If you think my idea is stupid please just move along and by all means feel free to laugh at me on your side of your screen.
Well, I guess I am one of those people as you’ve read
I think everyone is just wired in a (slightly) different way. You seem to think everyone thinks the same way you do.
You put it in a sort of kind way, but, to me, you say: “don’t bug me with your workarounds and ideas for different approaches”.
I’d like to suggest for future questions:
Please specify the kind of answer you like to see, in this case a boolean one, Y/N.
Automation is not having to do repetitive tasks manually, a flow for a one-time event is not automation.
