Complex advanced flow

[samanthafinnie]

This group/page has been great so far! Now I am wanting to do something very complex and I don’t know where to start since there isn’t a lot of videos out there on Flow and Excel.

I have self-taught myself Flow but I have ran into some situations in the past that it doesn’t work.

I am a travel agent and I specialized in groups (especially weddings!). I want to find a way to automate my group process as much as possible and take my business to the next level!!

Now I understand that Microsoft Flow may not be able to do everything I want it do but anything that can do to help automate a few things would be amazing!!!!

I understand this is very complex and I think way above my knowledge of Flow to do so I am asking for help and any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

If you have any questions please let me know!

What my plan is:

Have form where guests of a wedding group fill out to book their trip. I know I will need to do some specific branching depending on if it is 1, 2, 3,4 or people in a room (or matrix chart with pricing?) and different options with different pricing.  I can do this but I didn’t want to do this unless

What I have done in the past/do now:

Copied and pasted the information from the Form:

Into my numbers sheet

Into my rooming list

Onto a spreadsheet that had all the clients information

Name, Address, etc.

Now I know that doesn’t seem like a lot of work to copy and paste everything but when you are doing it over 500 times a year it adds up.

1. Numbers Spreadsheet

Numbers SpreadsheetRoom Number (has to be a unique number)

Passenger Counter just counts the numbers

(Numbers are a general sum equation)

What I want it to do:

• Transfer over First & Last Name
• Room Number (Unique Number-auto generated?)
• If possible put a 1 under the correct city(if possible/ or can do separate cities each on a different sheet). Or a way around this?
• I know this is probably a long shot but if there is a way when room type counter hits 0 it sends an approval instead?

1. Rooming List

Rooming List Spreadsheet

Pull the information from the form and input it into the spreadsheet:

• Last Name Under the Surname Field
• First Name under the Given Name Field
• Put Middle Name under the Given Name Field (this may or may not have a value depending on if they have a middle name on their passport.
• Title under Title
• Put Date of Birth (would be in the format that it is entered in on Forms, doesn’t really matter)
• Duration would be a choice option on the forms ( I can fill in Departure Date prior or after )
• Departure Gateway (would be city/ would be a choice option on form)
• Room Type (would be a few options/choices to select from in the form)
• Special Requests would be a free form field for guests to fill out

1. Make a reservation Sheet

It would take ALL the information inputted in the form, for example:

• Everyone’s names as per passports, birthdates, city, etc. and make a document with all that information but then have a spot at the bottom
• Don’t want to just print the Microsoft form (if possible) because of all the branching it would be like 5+ pages per a room and like something that is one page if possible

 Doesnt have to be an excel but did it for ease before. If it can autogenerate the pricing based off of the microsoft form( if i can build it in there that would be great!) This just needs to be a one page summary

1. Other stuff

Will have an email sent as soon as I receive the form to the guest going over the details they submitted, etc.

Out send an event/reminder for their calendar for the group final payment. (I will only need one in my calendar/ can manually add if need be)

Have in the email that sends the credit card authorization form (or I can call have done that in the past)

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!! 

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @samanthafinnie,

Have you formatted the excel file as a table?

It seems that there are some special formats in your Excel file. I am afraid that it might be not possible for flow to check columns that outside of a table.

Say I am having a table likes below. When trying to populate them with forms fields, only columns within the table are available.

I am afraid that a table with no special format is needed when you want to insert data from forms to it.

Once the table is available, it would be possible to save submitted details into the table.

Besides, about other staffs:

1. It is possible to send an email to the guest, just add the action Send an email and use the dynamic contents from the previous action as details.
2. It could be achieved by using the action Create event on your own calendar.
3. I assume that you could add the credit card authorization form as an attachment of an email.

Best regards,

Mabel

[samanthafinnie]

Hello Mabel, thank you so much for this information. I will try doing it that way and see if it works for all the other spreadsheets or how I can work it that way. It very much helps to determine which way I need to go with it. Again I have made a few flows but not with Excel. Thank you!

[Pieter_Veenstra]

Hi @samanthafinnie,

I'm always worried when a flow is described as complex.

Reading Excel files can be done suing tables, however I found that creating the tables actually restricted me too much. Hence I used the Graph API in FLow to read the data. No need for tables and it is a lot faster.

https://veenstra.me.uk/2018/10/17/microsoft-flow-read-large-excel-files-within-seconds-without-creat...

Ok, I understand that this might be a bit more of a technical solution but it might work for you too. Before I go into too mcuh detail. Are you looking to use the standard Excel actions or would you be interested in looking into somethign like the Graph API to get your data from the Excel spreadsheets?

[samanthafinnie]

Hello @Pieter_Veenstra, 

Thanks for your information. 

I am trying to put the data from the form into the spreadsheet. I dont know if your response will work or not.  Let me know. 

Let me know, 

Samantha

[samanthafinnie]

@v-yamao-msft

Thanks so much for all the information so far-- it has really helped  for doing the rooming list. I will be working on the other sections soon. 

I am trying to do a condition that if on the form it says 1 person (or 2, etc.) that it only inserts those amount of rows. 

I have tried it a few ways and it either comes back with inserting 1 or 3 rows. 

Overall flow:

tried this is as well

Using Null value?Also tried it as a compose and that didnt work. 

The main point of it is that I do not want it to input any information if there is no value in that form. 

Thank you again!

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @samanthafinnie,

Do you want to left the column on Excel blank when there is no value from Microsoft Forms?

Please try the following code. If there no value from forms, it will return a null value, otherwise, return the value itself.

if(empty(body('Get_response_details')?['r514df089a75647199268abd10ef0be4e']),'',body('Get_response_details')?['r514df089a75647199268abd10ef0be4e'])

I have made a simple test likes below, please take it for a reference.

Best regards,

Mabel

[samanthafinnie]

Hello @v-yamao-msft, 

Sorry if i didnt explain that right. It was late at night when I was working on it. 

There is required field in the Forms so all of would never be completely blank. 

Here is an example of my form (did it so you can duplicate it to understand how I did it)

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ShareFormPage.aspx?id=IQG5MntSTU-1WZIjLSiTfoNNYh1fQQtDmdQ2FDNbrFFUM0Q...

I have it branched out so can click the number of Adults in the room. Most times it is only 2 adults in the room but the room can accomdate 3 adults (or it can just be 1) in the room so I have to have that as an option. 

I want it so if there is only  1 or 2 Adults in the room it doesn't add an a third line in my spreadsheet it only adds the number of guests booked.. It only adds the information for the Adults 1 booked. Further to that I dont just want to leave form information blank(example below on what I mean) because that information is necessary if there is a 3rd Adult in the room. 

 

I am also going to come into the situation with the children as well  since it will insert a row for each child. Some rooms may or may not have kids. I dont know if i will be able to figure how to do this out based on the above answer to this question or not. 

Thank you so much for your help!!! I know it is a complex situation but you have no idea of how much time this will save me if this will work. 

Thank you again!!!

Samantha

[samanthafinnie]

@v-yamao-msft

I was wondering if you were able to help me with my previous situation. It is when there is no value in a specific form field. 

Thanks!

Samantha