Flow to send email containing link to excel doc in sharepoint, open in desktop client

[David2831]

I am making a flow to sort incoming files into correct folders, and email users that new files have arrived.

Users would like the emails to contain links to open the files, so they don't have to hunt through lots of folders.  And because the web version of excel is not very good, we want to open the file in the desktop app.

I have tried a few different methods mentioned on other posts, below is the current state of my flow.   This is one branch of a switch, the over all flow is large and is triggered when a file is created in a SharePoint library folder. =

Every time I open the flow to edit, the HTML code gets messed up, but here is a copy paste of the important bits of code = 

<A HREF="ms-excel:ofe|u|@{outputs('Daily_Log_file_Prop')?['body/{Link}']}">@{outputs('Daily_Log_file_Prop')?['body/{Name}']}</A>

This attempt does give me a clickable link in the email that opens the local excel app, but it opens a blank workbook with the the file name set to the same as the SharePoint file.  Its not actually copying down the file and data.  Very frustrating.  I am testing this with an account with site owner permissions, so I don't think its a security thing.

I then read a post that mentioned using "create sharing link for file" so I added that feature to my flow and tried this code =

<A HREF="ms-excel:ofe|u|@{outputs('Create_sharing_link_for_a_file_or_folder')?['body/link/webUrl']}">@{outputs('Daily_Log_file_Prop')?['body/{FilenameWithExtension}']}</A>

This email link gives an excel error about an invalid command.  So no good here.

Could someone offer me some advice on how to accomplish this?

[v-LilyW-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @David2831 

Perhaps you can try to send the file as an email attachment to users, so that the user can directly click the attachment to view the file content.

You can refer to the screenshots below to see if it helps.

Test the flow.

When a file is created in the folder, a new email with attachment will be sent.

Hope the content above may help you.

Best Regards

If my solution helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[David2831]

Ideally I did not want to add more files to our email, but I agree this is probably the best solution available, and the one I will probably go with.

Thank you.