Creating a usable Auto-Response flow for Outlook

[MBGAdmin]

Hi,

I am currently having issues creating a custom Outlook flow.

The idea for this is that it auto-resonds to any email that is sent from an external source (excludes two internal domain addresses) and that will not respond to any replies (emails that contain "RE:" in the subject field). The end of the flow also marks the email as unread as I noticed it marks them as read once it replies, we need this to show as unread so the emails do get responded to manually later down the line.

I started with a very basic auto-responder but very quickly realised this would not work. People send emails to this inbox internally, which just generates useless responses from the inbox.

We also just want this for when external addresses first email in, I thought a good way round this was just to exclude any emails that contain "RE:" in the subject field.

I believe I have done these conditions correctly, but on testing it does not work at all. Internal emails (from the two domains I have excluded) still get responses and emails with the subject "RE:" also do so. I do actually get a response from the inbox however and the "send an email" does work correctly. Before this I had tried "reply to email" which worked the same way.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, this is my first flow, so my knowledge may be lacking. I have done quite some searching on the forums for a solution now, one user wanted a similar thing to me and had recommended using the conditional I have already put in place.

Thanks

MBGAdmin

I have only hidden the addresses and body of text for the reply as they contain confidential information.

[annajhaveri · Accepted solution]

@MBGAdmin  in the condition dropdown where currently Or is selected, select AND, after this change the conditions should work.

[MBGAdmin]

Hi @annajhaveri 

That has worked, now I feel daft!

Surely the AND condition requires each of the 3 conditions to = true for the result to = true or is that just not how it works with the power automate flows? Is it because the AND condition is at the start and not between each of the flow conditions?

If you can provide an explanation that would be fantastic for creating any future flows, but thanks for the help so far regardless!

Kind regards,

MBGAdmin

[MBGAdmin]

Hi,

I have another question regarding the flows.

Upon re-applying the flow it seems like it has now responded to every email since I last had that flow on the mailbox. Is there anyway for me to disable this so that it does not reply to every email and just new ones that come in from the time I turn it back on?

Kind regards,

MBGAdmin

[annajhaveri · Accepted solution]

The And condition is works because if all of the conditions are true, then only it will go to Yes branch. In case of Or condition, if even if one condition is true and other two are false, then also it will go to Yes branch. 

[annajhaveri]

@MBGAdmin  refer to this post https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Community-Blog/Flow-with-quot-When-an-item-is-cre... you can do similar to just run the flow for new emails since the flow is turned on.