Duplicate Shared Office Calendar into D365 Calendar

[invintern]

Hello,

I am looking to update the D365 Dataverse Calendar with any and all events on our Shared Office Resources Calendar.

I can get D365 to re-create any events that have been 'added, updated, or deleted' but for some reason my Flow was created tons of duplicates.

Here is the Flow:

 Here are the results: 

(D365 will load forever - I assume there are 100+ duplicate entries on this day alone. Trust me that there are ALSO duplicates on the prior days, though D365 does not seem to want to load them while it is pre-loading my infinite list)

SO, I am hoping to re-create this Flow without the duplication.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

[ekarim2020]

One approach to this problem would be to store the Calendar event Id in the Appointments table. This then will enable you to find which Dataverse record (row) needs to be updated or deleted or created. For example:

Your flow will likely contain the following actions or similar:

Hope this helps.

Ellis
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[invintern]

Hi Ellis,

Yes, this makes sense...in theory!

My first question: what does the remainder of your Flow look like? I am not sure where within the Flow to put your 'add a new row 2' box.

What is the 'EventID' and where do I find it?

Do you input 'id' onto....duration? As you can see, my 'add a new row' step does NOT have an input ask for EventID. It looks to me like you put it over Duration?

How do I setup the 3-branch logic, differentiating between a record deleted, updated, or added? I am looking at the 'Condition' option, and am wondering how to end up with the results, given the inputs of 'if event [is equal to/does contain/ends with/etc].' 

Thank you for your efforts in helping me. Please let me know what you come up with.

[ekarim2020]

I have a flow that does almost the opposite, it takes events from a Dataverse table and updates a SharePoint List:

The concepts should be the same or similar to what you are trying to do:

The SharePoint list has a column called itemInternalId that stores the Dataverse row Id (itemInternalId):

The example screen shot I created of the Dataverse action was for just for demonstration purposes only. You would need to create a new column to store the Event ID:

The Calendar Event Id can be found in Dynamic content as shown below:

Ellis
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[ekarim2020]

The Switch action could be used for the different actions, for example:

Ellis

[invintern]

Very helpful, thank you for introducing to me the concepts of Scope & Switch. 

I find that I am often unaware of the tools at my disposal. It is very easy to begin the PA journey somewhere in the middle (in my experience).

Ok, so depending on the Action Type of the events (created, deleted, updated) I can send the Flow down one of three paths.

Add a row makes sense. Add a row to Appointment with the details given in Exchange.

How about Update or Delete? Where do I find the Row ID to update? My Dynamic Content selector lets me choose the ID of the Exchange event, though I believe I need the specific Dataverse event....In my head, I could find a way to search the Dataverse for the ID that the newly-created appointment was given...though it seems like listing Rows -> Appointments does not seem to give me that level of specificity.

I will keep poking around. Thank you for your continued assistance. 

Edit: Further, would you mind please showing me the contents of your Scopes?

[ekarim2020]

This is the updated logic of the flow:

This is the flow based more or less on the above flow chart:

The Outlook Calendar Id can in fact be stored in the Outlook Appointment field during the Add a new row action. The Dataverse internal name for this column is globalobjectid:

To find appointments that were Updated or Deleted:

Hope this helps.

Ellis

[invintern]

This does help. Of course, I still have a few questions. I am going to build as I type to you.

Regarding the snip marked "This is the flow based more or less on the above flow chart:" - What is your 'Compose Documentation' about?

Regarding your Conditions, I can't see what you're doing in there and here is my educated guess on the 'update event' Switch path. I have a feeling I may be incorrect here. My 'delete' path has the same condition.

Further, in my 'delete' path could you please let me know if this is what you have in mind?

Finally, in one more clue that I have something wrong, I notice that my Flow gave me the 'Apply to each' boxes, whereas yours does not have them. 

I believe my next issue lies in those conditions.

Thank you for your continued support.

-Ryan

[invintern]

One final question (maybe):

Where does this snip come from? I don't see any boxes asking for 'Outlook ID'. 

[ekarim2020]

[updated] Click Show Advanced Options:

Then scroll down the long page of field names:

The Id is taken from Dynamic content as shown below:

Ellis

[ekarim2020]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope this helps.

Ellis
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[invintern]

Is this a full-time job, helping me with this Flow? Thank you so much for the help.

I don't see explicit instructions on the Composeitem action just after the Flow begins, underneath "When an event is added, updated or deleted (V3)." But judging by your later snips it LOOKS LIKE that compose function should have its "inputs" listed as 'activityid' - though I don't think that is right because your hover shows text "outputs('ComposeItem')?['activityid']" whereas mine says "outputs('ComposeItem)."

I will keep working, as the rest of it makes sense...so far!

Thanks again for the help.

[ekarim2020]

As long as you enter this as an expression the flow should work:

 

Power Automate sometimes changes the display name of the inputs. In the above example, the display name got changed to activityid when I later re-opened the flow again:

In both case the expression is still:

outputs('ComposeItem2')?['activityid']

 

Ellis

 

[invintern]

(edit) Interesting. I have input the Expressions where you mentioned. Before I had selected the Dynamic Content output of the Compose action. I changed mine to make sure it's like yours. If you don't mind, I'd like to show you what I've got to see if you think it is good to activate.

I also have one final (maybe) question about your first Compose action. I didn't seem to use mine. Please let me know if I misunderstood.

I believe I have EXACTLY what you have, other than the icons by the expressions we were just talking about. Notice how in my 'update a row' section my expression is left with its Expression icon, whereas yours has the Compose icon.

Can I ask for one my favor from you, to check what I've got here and give me a thumbs up?

[ekarim2020]

(1) Use the End time with time zone from the Outlook event - as the End time may be one of the fields that were changed. Same with Start time - which I take from the Outlook event - as the Start time may have changed too. Same again with Subject, Body, Location or any other column to you want to track the changes of.

(2)  I'm not using an Apply to each loop - but the flow could still work with a loop. In my flow I am using the Compose action (ComposeItem) to select the record that was returned from the List rows action - so I can avoid using a loop.

(3) Optional - I usually include a compose action to keep some notes about the flow

Or you can keep notes using the new Comments feature in Power Automate:

 

 

 Ellis

[invintern]

Wonderful,

I have made the changes you suggested to End Time (as well as start time, which I hadn't shown you!)

I didn't see anything from you saying it doesn't work.........so I think I am going to activate it tonight and see if it works as intended tomorrow morning.

I will report back with questions/updates and will be sure to give you that 'Accept as a solution,' just as soon as I know it works!

Thank you so much for the help.

-Ryan

[invintern]

Hello Ellis,

Naturally, Xmas holiday season is one where not many people are scheduling events on the calendar for testing purposes.

I had one Flow go off since I turned this one on and it 'ran successfully' but 'ActionBranchingConditionNotSatisfied. The execution of template action 'Compose_2' skipped: the branching condition for this action is not satisfied."

Snip:

Here is the condition: 'length(outputs('List_rows')?['body/value']) is greater than 0.

Thanks again.

[ekarim2020]

This is the sample Output from my flow:

 

(1) Check the List Rows action

 

It is likely that you are updating a calendar event in Outlook - but that event does not exist in the Dataverse Appointments table? The flow was created later but the event was already in Outlook before the flow was created. Please confirm. If that is the case you will need to add some extra actions to deal with this situation.

(2) Please check the expression for the condition, you can copy-and-paste the expression below:

length(outputs('List_rows')?['body/value'])

 Ellis

[invintern]

Good point that maybe the Dataverse item does not exist, yet the Outlook may have been updated.

List rows looks like it's fine.

My condition uses 'length,' not 'first.' It is what you have written, though the final snip with 'first(outputs(...", though I can't seem to paste into my Expression box. That 'first(outputs(...' is what is written in my Compose 2, in the Update a row path.

Ok, if I have my inputs correct and the latest issue was that an event was updated that hadn't been added to the dataverse....it looks like we've got it right.

Thanks for the help, Ellis. I will write back if anything funny comes up.

[ekarim2020]

This is more or less the the current flow:

You could update the flow for the "updated" condition to add a new appointment if none was found:

 Ellis