Mail merge excluding duplicate emails

[Chris22]

Hello,

I want to circulate a list of leads to our sales team on a regular basis. I want each member of the sales team to get a personalised list of leads. The data currently sits on an excel spreadsheet. There is a column that has the sales persons email address. I was thinking to treat it like a mail merge but then that would result in one email for each lead. 

Is there a way of using 'apply to each' to send 1 email to each unique user with a link or attachment to a spreadsheet with their leads? So my example bellow everyone would get 1 email with their leads. Joe would get 1 email with a spreadsheet that has both red and green in the table?

thanks in advance.

[sumurthy]

I know this is not the full solution -- but for the core part of your solution you can use Office Scripts.

See here for more details: 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/scripts/overview/excel

You can use Run Action on Excel online flow to first create an output that summarizes the leads by sales person. 

Input table 

(it's in a sheet called Sheet4)

Office Script

function main(workbook: ExcelScript.Workbook): ReturnTemplate {
  const keyColName = 'Sales lead'
  const table1 = workbook.getWorksheet('Sheet4').getTables()[0];
  const keyColumnValues: string[] = table1.getColumnByName(keyColName).getRangeBetweenHeaderAndTotal().getValues().map(v => v[0] as string);
  const uniqueKeys= [...Array.from(new Set(keyColumnValues))];
  console.log(uniqueKeys);
  const returnObj: ReturnTemplate = {}

  uniqueKeys.forEach((key: string) => {
    table1.getColumnByName(keyColName).getFilter()
      .applyValuesFilter([key]);
    const rangeView = table1.getRange().getVisibleView();
    returnObj[key] = returnObjectFromValues(rangeView.getValues() as string[][]);
  })
  console.log(JSON.stringify(returnObj));
  table1.getColumnByName(keyColName).getFilter().clear();
  return returnObj
}

function returnObjectFromValues(values: string[][]): BasicObj[] {
  let objArray = [];
  let objKeys: string[] = [];
  for (let i=0; i < values.length; i++) {
    if (i===0) {
      objKeys = values[i]
      continue;
    }
    let obj = {}
    for (let j=0; j < values[i].length; j++) {
      obj[objKeys[j]] = values[i][j]
    }
    objArray.push(obj);
  }
  return objArray;
}

interface BasicObj {
  [key: string] : string
}

interface ReturnTemplate {
  [key: string]: BasicObj[]
}

Output: 

{
	"person1@mail.com": [{
		"Sales lead": "person1@mail.com",
		"Client name": "Foo1",
		"Client contact": 123456789,
		"Status": "Approach",
		"Notes": ""
	}, {
		"Sales lead": "person1@mail.com",
		"Client name": "Foo3",
		"Client contact": 123456791,
		"Status": "Approach",
		"Notes": ""
	}],
	"person2@mail.com": [{
		"Sales lead": "person2@mail.com",
		"Client name": "Foo2",
		"Client contact": 123456790,
		"Status": "Approach",
		"Notes": ""
	}, {
		"Sales lead": "person2@mail.com",
		"Client name": "Foo4",
		"Client contact": 123456792,
		"Status": "Approach",
		"Notes": ""
	}],
	"person3@mail.com": [{
		"Sales lead": "person3@mail.com",
		"Client name": "Foo5",
		"Client contact": 123456793,
		"Status": "Approach",
		"Notes": "Note Intl time zone"
	}],
	"person4@mail.com": [{
		"Sales lead": "person4@mail.com",
		"Client name": "Foo6",
		"Client contact": 123456794,
		"Status": "Hold",
		"Notes": ""
	}]
}

 You can then use this output in the next flow to send email. 

If the output structure needs to change (perhaps an array with each element belonging to sales lead, you can alter the script to do it. Let me know if you need help.

[Chris22]

Hi Sumurthy,

This looks very promising for this solution but I can see office scripts being very helpful in a number of other areas. I'll give this a crack and let you know if I need further help.

Many thanks!

Chris

[sumurthy]

You can checkout this video for step by step instructions -- though for a different scenario: 

https://youtu.be/dVwqBf483qo

[Chris22]

hello @sumurthy ,

I've got the script working like a charm but i'm not sure the next step in Power Automate. 

I'm assuming I need to use 'Parse Json' so that I can pick up the 'Email', 'Ref', and colour headers?

Then I'm assuming I need to use 'Apply to each' step? If this is the case what is the output from previous step?

Thanks for your help so far!

[sumurthy]

I'm not very familiar with other actions that allows such data to be parsed for email action. 

It is however easy to output whatever format that's required for such email to be sent out of the script. 

[

   { id: id1, data: [] },

   { id: id2, data: [] }

]

vs

{

  id1: [],

  id2: []

}

[Chris22]

Hello, 

Thank for the help so far. I'm a bit stuck however. I've tried a few options and I can't figure what format I need the output in from the script.

useing your example:

The purpose of my flow is to send a single email to each of the emails mentioned. (person1@mail.com, person2@mail.com etc...) In the body or as an attachement I would like to send then a table of their leads. So person 1 would get one email with the following table:

Client name	Client Contact	Status	Notes
Foo1	123456798	Approach
Foo3	123456791	Approach

Ideally it would be a HTML table inside the email but it could also be an email attachment.

What would the next steps be?

Many thanks

[sumurthy]

Hi @Chris22 

I think I can provide a sample in response... I haven't tried the last step myself. Will get back to you within a day.

I'm thinking of one of two approaches -

1. generate the HTML that can directly be embedded in the mail from Office Script

2. generate image of range that you can use 

3. or, construct the email body in the send mail action. 

not sure which one will work best... I'll look and get back.

[Paulie78 · Accepted solution]

This is quite straightforward to do, check out this image https://ibb.co/V2hmW5P :

This is the resulting email for Tim:

and for Joe:

Hope this helps, reach out if you need help building it.

Please...

If I answered your question Accept it as a solution ✔️ 

If I helped you out, please give me some Kudos 👍

Thanks 😙

[Chris22]

Hi @Paulie78 ,

Thank you so much you have no idea how this is going to help. I've just about cracked it apart from one this.

The tables in the emails have the header but no data.

When I create the HTML table what (body) placeholder am I selecting? I would have thought there would be one from (List rows in table). The only option available is from the (filter array) step.

Did we miss a step or am I being really thick?

Thanks again.

[Paulie78]

The filter array is the correct step to use as the input for the HTML table action (because you want a filtered list of results). 

What it means if the HTML Table is empty is that your filter result is probably empty. So your first step would be to check the output of the filter in the run history. Hopefully it should look something like this:

If the Outputs are empty, then you have a problem in your filter condition, so that would be the first place to check. I also realise now that I didn't give you the source for the HTML table formatting. You can grab it from my blog:

Power Automate HTML Table Styling and Formatting 

I'm guessing by the way you spell colour that you are in the UK, so if you get stuck again, we can have a quick teams meeting and I will have a look at the flow for you.

[Chris22]

Hi @Paulie78, Thanks for this. I'll have a look tonight with a glass of whisky and see if I can figure out what went wrong. No doubt it was user error on my end. thanks again for your help. I'll let you know how I get on. 

[Paulie78]

Maybe have the whisky after as a celebration 😂

If it will make it easier for you I will record a video of building the whole flow (only takes a couple of minutes). Writing it up took longer. 

[Chris22]

Hi @Paulie78,

Your instructions were spot on, i've managed to make it to the last step but then I get this error. Any ideas where I went wrong?

[Paulie78 · Accepted solution]

To me, it looks like you have tried to put the entire array of email addresses in the "To:" field, when what you want is just the Dynamic Content "CurrentEmail".

Almost time for your whiskey....

[Chris22]

Hi @Paulie78 , 

I deleted the placeholders and added them back in and bingo!

Whiskey time.

Thanks again! If I ever have more children I shall name them Paulie!

Chris

[BigNastyJon]

Hi Paulie, I stumbled across this today and it has been a huge help (first time using power automate)! You’re a life saver.

do you know how we would add the person’s name to the body of the email (ex. “Hi Tim,” instead of “Hi,”)?

[BigNastyJon]

I should add that I have a column in the excel file called “names” with the name of the person associated with each email