Outlook to MS To Do; how do I automatically set the due date based on date in email body?

[JamesBowen]

Hi all,

I want a Flow that creates a task in MS To Do whenever I receive an automated email from our HR system. These emails get sent to me when a new employee is hired, and always include their start date in the email body.

I can't figure out how to get my Flow to recognize the hire's start date in the email body in Outlook and automatically set the due date in MS To Do exactly 7 days before it. Is that possible?

Thanks for your help!

Current Flow:

Template email that I receive (date highlighted):

[edgonzales · Accepted solution]

@JamesBowen 

Hi there!  So, short version is "Yes, that is possible in a few different ways".  Which way we go will depend on your comfort level with expressions.  Here are the high-level ideas:

• If you are comfortable with expressions, you could use something like Split() and/or Substring() to parse the eMail body on a consistent phrase or character count.
• If you don't like expressions, you can use the new text functions (Find text position and/or Substring) to do pretty much the same thing.
• If that doesn't sound like fun either, you can use a third-party tool like Parserr to build rules to parse out the information you need and present it as dynamic values in Power Automate.

Either way, keep us posted.

-Ed

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[JamesBowen]

Hi Ed,

Thank you for your response! I appreciate that you provided a few options for me.

While I'm not super familiar with expressions, I'm happy to do some exploration and experimentation to figure it out. If that doesn't go well, I'll try out Parserr.

Thanks again,

James