Move email then mark as 'unread' action offers Boolean yes / no rather than 'read' / 'unread'. Counterintuitive or just plain Wrong?

[HydrogenUtility]

It's self-explanatory I guess. I'm parsing an email subject and allocating it to a particular inbox sub-folder then flagging it as unread such that the folder content gives the user a sense of how many emails are in there for followup.

The action block called Mark as read or unread (V3) gives three options being Yes, No or Enter custom value but none of these indicate mark as read or unread. Further inputting 'read' or 'unread' as a custom value throws an error as the action expects a boolean value.

Of course if this is designed as a toggle then that's ok, and potentially usable, however if the command was interpreted as 'Toggle between read or unread' and the answer was 'no' then why would I have the step in the first place? ie the only logical input for a step 'toggle between boolean states' is yes or skip the question and leave it as is, right?

Either way I've tried every manner available and no input makes any difference to the state of the email's read/unread status.

Anyone else encountered this?

 

 

[v-duann-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @HydrogenUtility 

Thank you for posting.

According to your description, you are testing ‘mark as read or unread’ action but find something unreasonable.

I tested from my end and easily reproduced your scenario. The displayed selection changed from ‘read/unread’ to ‘yes/no’ and we can’t input other custom value except Boolean.

After testing, I found the ‘yes’ option means ‘IsRead = yes’ and ‘no’ means ‘IsRead = false’. If you can check the output from 'Mark as read or unread’ action, you will find this parameter as well.

Meanwhile, I found this part has been updated in our official documentation as below:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/office365/#mark-as-read-or-unread-(v3)

So, at the current stage, the flow configuration is matched with the article. If you want to mark message unread, please select ‘No’. If you want to mark message read, please select ‘Yes’.

Sorry for the confusion caused and hope the content above may help you.

Best regards,

Anna

[HydrogenUtility]

Thanks @v-duann-msft you have answered my question. I still can't get the email to actually show 'unread' but I'm prepared to suggest that might be an issue with my email client.

The card description remains counterintuitive, however, and it may be worth renaming the card as simply Mark as Read. This simple change would effectively eliminate the confusion, I believe.

Thanks for the quick reply