Attach multiple items to an email via forms

[LukeSykes]

I have followed this guide

Emailing File Attachments from Forms with Power Automate – What Me Pa..Panic? (dontpapanic.com)

However unfortunately it sends an email for each item uploaded, and each subsequent email also has the attachment for the previous email attached:

Email one: Attachment One

Email two: Attachment One and Two

Email three: Attachment One, Two and Three

and so on.

How can I prevent this please?

This is my schema if it's useful?

{

@Pstork1 

    "type": "array",

    "items": {

        "type": "object",

        "properties": {

            "name": {

                "type": "string"

            },

            "link": {

                "type": "string"

            },

            "id": {

                "type": "string"

            },

            "type": {},

            "size": {

                "type": "integer"

            },

            "referenceId": {

                "type": "string"

            },

            "driveId": {

                "type": "string"

            },

            "status": {

                "type": "integer"

            },

            "uploadSessionUrl": {}

        },

        "required": [

            "name",

            "link",

            "id",

            "type",

            "size",

            "referenceId",

            "driveId",

            "status",

            "uploadSessionUrl"

        ]

    }

}

[LukeSykes]

@Pstork1 

Hi Paul

Please can you let me know how to collect the schema?

[Pstork1]

Run it once with a schema of {}. Then take the output of the parse JSON in the run and use that to generate the schema usingthe built in button.

[LukeSykes]

Excellent - thank you

[LukeSykes]

Hi Again @Pstork1 

For some reason, doing this sends multiple emails like mentioned in my original post, so if i attach 3 items it sends

Email one: Attachment One

Email two: Attachment One and Two

Email three: Attachment One, Two and Three

[Pstork1]

Move the Send an email action outside the loop that appends the documents to the array.  Having it inside the loop sends one email as each document is added. You have to add all the documents first and then send the email

[LukeSykes]

PERFECT!!!

Thank you so much

[LukeSykes]

how can I make this still work if there is no attachment on the form? It fails at the Parse Json action

[Pstork1]

If you give them the option to not upload a file then you need to check whether an attachment exists or not before doing the Parse JSON.  If it doesn't have any attachments skip the parse JSON and the loop and just send the email. The attachment array at that point will be empty.

[LukeSykes]

Ok

So I'm checking for that with a condition - problem is I want it to send the email either way.

The form has a drop down where you select which staff list you want to send the email to, there are 7.

Does that mean building 14 switches? 7 for if there is an attachment under 'If Yes' in the condition and 7 under 'If No' for if there isn't one?

[Pstork1]

No, You check to see if the question where you upload a file is empty or not.  If its not empty you need to create the array. If it is empty then you skip creating the array (the parse json and loop actions). Then send the email normally.  You just add a condition to check for attachments and put the parse json and the loop inside the yes of that condition. Then send the email after the condition.  That has nothing to do with who you are sending the email to.

[LukeSykes]

This is what i have now

The switch is for whichever staff list is selected on the form

This is the fail - The execution of template action 'Apply_to_each_4' failed: the result of the evaluation of 'foreach' expression '@body('Parse_JSON')' is of type 'Null'. The result must be a valid array.

Is this because there is no attachment? Not sure what i'm missing.

[ChadVKealey]

I prefer a different approach to the "no files attached" scenario (see https://youtu.be/jBTmX0cm6NU). As for the switch, that seems like an inefficient way to determine to whom the message should be sent. I usually use an array in the flow to map an email address to the choices on the form and then a filter array action to determine which address to use.

[Pstork1]

I don't see the Apply to each 4 action in your screenshot.  But I don't think your condition is doing what you think it is.  If you don't add a file to that question what shows up as the answer when you look at the get responses action?  Is that question missing?  If it is then you should be testing against a null function not a blank field.

[LukeSykes]

Apply to each 4 is in one of the cases in the switch, based on which staff list is selected.

Here is the case which it failed in, but I suspect it would fail whichever list is chosen

@ChadVKealey A switch is the only way i could think of doing this, using get items to draw the email addresses of each person in the list and using dynamic content from the get items action to add it into the 'to' field for the email. Ive completed and tested that part of the flow which works as expected as ineficient as it may seem 🙂 but it just wont work if there is no attachment.

****update****

After following you instructions on the video - it now works

[LukeSykes]

Can you show me how you use an array for the email addresses?

In my example, I am using get items to link to the different staff lists, and the email address is pulled from the a people picker column.

The email example below is adding those email addresses from the get items into the 'to' field but upon retest its taking a very long time for the flow to actually run

[ChadVKealey]

Before reading your full response, I thought this video would be the answer: https://youtu.be/n-OmS_c4Q_8

After reading it, well...it's more complicated than that. All those apply to each loops are just slowing things down. I don't know the architecture of those lists or the person columns (are they single-select or mutli-select - it makes a difference), so it's hard to give a definitive answer. However, in either case, you'll want to add a Select action after each of the "Get items" to extract just the email address from the person field in that list. You can see a demo of that here: https://youtu.be/uzpS6ZWsvmM?t=886. Select always returns an array (list) of items or values. You can use the join expression to concatenate those email addresses into a string that you can use in the To field of the Send email action (join(<output-of-array>,';')). If it's a single-select field, it'll just be that one email address. If it's multi-select, they'll be separated with semicolons (which is the form Outlook needs).

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

You only need one loop to change the email field from an array into a semicolon delimited variable.  Then when its time to send the email you use that variable for the To.  YOu don't need to do all the processing and send the email inside the loop;