Issue : Multiple emails with similar contents were sent

[Wei_Shin]

Hi all, I am very new to power automate. I am creating a flow to remind the user or owner to perform maintenance when it due soon. 

However, I faced an issue where multiple emails with same content were sent whenever I run the flow and couldn't solve the problem. I am looking for someone who can guide me through to solve the issue. Please find the flow I built below:

Overall flow

[BCBuizer]

Hi @Wei_Shin ,

It seems you have a nested loop in your flow that may cause the issue: 

Without being able to actually read what is in your flow it is hard to say, but it seems that for each Machine, mails are sent out for each machine, causing the duplication.

[Wei_Shin]

Hi @BCBuizer, thank you for your answer! May I know what is particular you would like to see? May I know how do I solve this issue? Thanks in advance!

Overall view of the flow

[Rhiassuring · Accepted solution]

Hi there, 

It is hard to see some of the detail in your flow, but I really appreciate the effort you put into adding the text to identify what's happening. 

Just so I'm clear - are you wanting to remind users about maintenance when the machine is A) still in use, B) needs maintenance = yes, and C) due 30 days from Today, and then send reminders 1 day after and then every day after that until the machine is set to "Requires Maintenance = No"?

It will be tricky for me to solve the issue from out here, but instead, here is how I would construct it:

I made a fake list to demo from:

First thing I'm going to do is use the Filter on my Get Items to reduce the amount of conditions / checks we need to do.  My filter query looks like this:

(Ignore my column names, they hadn't updated)

(MaintenanceNeeded eq 'Yes') and (InUse eq 'Yes') and (MaintenanceDate le '@{formatDateTime(addDays(utcNow(),30),'M/dd/yyyy')}')

3 birds, one stone! Now we only have things that DO need maintenance, ARE In Use, and have a maintenance date that is within 30 days from now (or less.) 

Now, there are two paths here, and I'd usually split this into two flows: one for 30 days before, and one for reminders the day of, until complete. But, here we go, in one flow:

How many days are between the Maintenance Date and Today?

Some set-up: for simplicity's sake, I've initialized 2 variables - txtMaintenanceDate and txtToday, which I've set to 

formatDateTime(utcNow(),'yyyy-MM-dd'). 

The first thing I'll do is set my Maintenance Needed variable, so that the automatic "Apply to Each" can appear. I use Set Variable, and drop in the "MaintenanceDate" from dynamic content.

Next, I'll use a Compose action, and format my MaintenanceDate the same as I did for utcNow. 

formatDateTime(variables('txtDate'),'yyyy-MM-dd').

Then, the big, weird Compose to find the days between the dates.

div(sub(ticks(outputs('Compose_-_Format_Maintenance_Needed_Date')),ticks(variables('txtToday'))),864000000000)

For a date set to May 14th, it tells me 30 days. For a date set to April 13th, it tells me -1. 

I'm setting parallel conditions, only because I dislike nesting. On one side - is the count of days = 30? If yes, then, email. If no, do nothing.

On the other side - is the count of days less than 0? If yes, then email.

Do your maintenance folks have a way to update the date to the next year or flip the "Maintenance Needed" to no? I am assuming yes or else this would go forever...

[Wei_Shin]

Hi @Rhiassuring , very thank you for your spontaneous and such a detail explanation on the flow. Yes the users are able to update the maintenance date.

Allow me to take some time to test out the following:

1. Add in the filter condition as what you've suggested

2. Try to split the condition

Again a very big thank you for the reply and effort to create a demonstration template for the ease of my understanding!

[Rhiassuring]

Good luck, and, you're very welcome! Let me know if you run into any issues. 🏁

[Wei_Shin]

Hi @Rhiassuring, may I seek for your help again to check on the flow I created by copying from you.

There are a few errors I see in the flow:

These are the list that I've created

1. I placed filter as per below

(Maintenance eq 'Yes') and (Status eq 'Active') and (Next maintenance '{formatDateTime(addDays(utcNow(),30),'yyyy-MM-dd')

2. I initialised 2 variables 

a. Next maintenance date - formatDateTime(addHours(utcNow()),8,'yyyy-MM-dd')

b. Today's date - formatDateTime(addHours(utcNow()),8,'yyyy-MM-dd')

First step

3. Then I set variable, and place the Next maintenance date into the dynamic content

4. Followed by using compose the format the date

5. and use Compose to do the calculation using  - 

div(sub(ticks(outputs('Compose_-_Format_Next_maintenance_date')),ticks(variables('Today date'))),864000000000)

6. and condition for 1 month before and the maintenance day itself

Step 2

7. Lastly sending email to the owner, I would like to ask it seems like the details of the users cannot be loaded see images attached

Step 3

[abm]

Hi @Wei_Shin 

There are other contributors helped here and I am not taking away anyone's credit for this. I got a private email about this issue and decided to do a screenshare and help. So we have redesigned the concept of due date for maintenance alert by adding a number of days maintained in SharePoint list. So that it would be easier it work out how many days before it need to alert the user. Also the filtering part changed accordingly. Finally we have a working solution here. Thanks again those who contributed here. Well done to all.

Thanks

[Rhiassuring]

That's great to hear, @abm , thanks for the update! 
It was an interesting one, so much room for further features.. 🙂