Get Items and then Send Email

[jkeckard007]

All 

I am new to flow so here goes,

I have a Recurrence Flow that I want to query a SharePoint list and if the PO column is New then send an email to a group of people.   I get the recurrence set up but I am not understanding in the Get Items piece how to get the results of that action.

I basically want a count of items that have a PO of New If >0 send an email.  If not, do nothing.

Can someone help?

Thanks

Jennifer

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @jkeckard007,

You said that “if the PO column is New”, do you mean that the created time of this column is equal to today?

After the action Get items, you need to add a Condition or an action Filter array to filter the items that are new.

Please take the following screenshot for a reference.

In this flow, I am using the action “Filter array”. The code is:

@equals(formatDateTime(item()?['Created'], 'yyyy-MM-dd'), formatDateTime(utcnow(), 'yyyy-MM-dd'))

Then I use Create HTML table so that I can send the items at a time.

Please take the following docs for a reference:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-workflow-definition-language
https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/html-tables-csvs-computer-vision/

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[jkeckard007]

New is the default value for the field. The parts department could get the request and fill it on the same day.  They change the PO field to a PO number instead of New.  I think I can modify the information you sent and possibly make this work.  I will attempt and let you know.  Thank you

Jennifer 

[jkeckard007]

All,

with help I have the Get Items filtering but what I want to do is if there are no items with PO eq New then do nothing if there is one then send an email. The issue is that it is the expression which is @equals(item()?['PO'],'New')  it is returning false  but it is in fact true.  I don't want to do a: for each, I don't think because I only want to send one email not multiple.  Any help would be great!

[efialttes]

Hi

Are you using the expression inside an Filter Array action Block? Inside a Condition in an Apply To Each? or in the ODATA Filter input at the Get Items action block?

I mean @equals(item()?['PO'],'New')

If you are using it in any of the two options above, it should work unless the content of 'PO' returned is different. Moreover, ff you are using an ApplyToEach+Condition, you can inspect the content by adding a Compose action Block with the following expression

item()?['PO']

just before the Condition.

Then you can execute the flow, and verify details in Run History

Hope this helps

[jkeckard007]

Currently I have  Sorry can't seem to post picture but the item returns as false and there is a New item in the list the get item action returns both one that is set to New and one that is not.

I tried to filter  the array  but not sure how to do a condition on that.  Sorry really new to Flow and trying to figure this out as this is the way of the futuren with workflows.

Get Item

Then Condition as stated previously then

If Yes Send email

If No nothing

[efialttes]

Hi again

If you are using "SP Get Item" it is because you already have the Item ID and add it as input, so you get back an object with all the target item related info.

If so, you do not need to filter, you got the item you were looking for.

If you are using "SP Get Items" you do not need to add as input the Item ID, since you are getting all items in the list as an array of objects. Once you get this array, you can filter it following the different strategies I commented on my initial post

There is an excellent tutorial on how to combine "Get items" and "Filter Array" published on Microsoft Flow official https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/email-digest-date-manipulations/

Hope this helps

[jkeckard007]

OK am really slow here because I am folling the example and I can not get the flow to save it says

' cannot reference action 'Compose'. The action 'Compose' is nested in a foreach scope of multiple levels. Referencing repetition actions from outside the scope is supported only 

When I am in the email section and I do the join it says to do.

Also in this example it appears the email will send even if there is nothing in the list to send.  I want the email not to send if the array is empty.

[efialttes]

Hi again

Can you share a screenshot of your flow?

[jkeckard007]

[efialttes]

Hi

Was the inner Apply to Each added automatically? If you added it manually, can you remove it?

Can you also share the expressions you are using in your Compose Block ?

Can you also share the join expression in the email body?

Please note the first Apply to each is applying to the "Filter array" result, while the second Apply to Each is applying to the "Get items" result. So I guess if you change the two expressions inside the Compose Block and replace them by item()?['NotSureWhatsTheNameOfTheColumnYouAddedHere']

Hope this helps

[jkeckard007]

OK the second for each was due to the instructions saying to do items('Apply_to_each')?['Title'] in the html build.

I changed this to <tr><td>item()?['Description']</td><td>item()?['Order Qty']</td></tr>

The email fired but no table was in there

the body says

<table>Join(actionOutputs('Compose'),'.')</table>

But the email says

item()?['Description']

item()?['Order Qty']

This is fustrating thank you for your help on all this.  I still don't know how to get the item to not fire an email if there are no New parts but one thing at a time 🙂

[efialttes]

Hi again

Let's try to summarize.

You want to grab the items in the Sharepoint List matching a certain criteria (the Filter Array).

The criteria you have defined in the Filter Array is the following:

@equals(item()?['PO'],'New')

Then, you want to create an HTML table with two columns taken from the SP List structure: "Description" and "Order Qty", and as many rows as the items that matched the criteria in the Filter Array.

Finally you want to send a single email with the table result.

The Filter is not working as you expected, so no matter the content of the "PO" column in Sharepoint is, all the items are included in the HTML table.

Also, the table is finally showing the same info per item:

item()?['Description']       item()?['Order Qty']

Is the summary right?

[jkeckard007]

as you outline it is correct except for one thing.  If there is no items in the filter array portion do not send an email at all.

[efialttes · Accepted solution]

Hi again

From the screenshot you shared, I would keep "Get items", "Filter Array". I would also remove both "Apply to each" and the compose action block.

Once these are removed, I would add

Next I would add a Condition, and use the following expression:

@equals(length(body('Filter_array'),0)

On the "True" branch I would add a Terminate action block. On the "False" branch I would add nothing.

Then, outside the condition, I would add a Select action Block (you can see more information here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/flow/data-operations#use-the-select-action )

You need to add Filter Array output as the input for this new Select action block. If you follow the instructions from the link above, you will see Select allows you to choose which columns from the filtered items you want to keep.

Then I would follow @v-yamao-msft suggestion to include "Create HTML table" action block, adding the Select Action Block output as the input for this new "Create HTML table" action block. I would finally add "Send an email" following @v-yamao-msft suggestion.

Please note Flow allows to implement an idea in different ways. From the screenshot you shared it seems you haven't followed @v-yamao-msftsuggestions, but tried a different way instead. But I guess the double Apply to Each in your Flow screenshot is making the Filter array useless; and for some reason the Compose action block is not getting the value of the expressions, but the expressions in a literal way.

Hope this helps

[efialttes]

Hi again

I've found another excellent example on how to combine Get Items + Filter Array + Select+ Create HTML Table + Send an email via @v-xida-msft here:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Monthly-email-with-info-about-new-items-in-SP-lis...

Happy Flowing!

[jkeckard007]

The below is giving me an error @equals(length(body('Filter_array'),0)

The template validation failed: 'The template action 'Condition' at line '1' and column '1736' is not valid: "Unable to parse template language expression 'equals(length(body('Filter_array'),0)': expected token 'RightParenthesis' and actual 'EndOfData'.".'.

I figured it out though it is 

@equals(length(body('Filter_array')),0)

I just made the email send with a link to the sharepoint list I did not need the html stuff at this time