Selectable recipients and distribution lists

[Anonymous]

Hello All, 

I created a SharePoint list to track tickets/issues. This includes recipients for the operator to select from. I created a flow which will send out a formatted email with the information from the list. I can add recipients directly into the email but opted to get the recipients information through the Get User Profile. This way I can create a condition in the flow that determines all selected recipients and in the Send Email in the To list I have all of the recipients listed as Dynamic Content items. This allows me to only send the email to the recipients selected in the list by the operator. All of this works so far but some of the recipients are distribution lists. Since distribution lists are not users they don't resolve and the Flow throws an error. Is there any other way to make the DL a Dynamic Content item that can be added as the email recipient placeholder?

[yashag2255]

Hi @Anonymous 

So the get user profile action must be failing in the flow for you. You can add a parallel branch and make that action run only after the previous action has failed. 

You can also use the Office 365 groups connector to list members of a group and then pass the id of the DL to that to list members and then get each user profile too. 

Hope this Helps!

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[efialttes]

Hi!

Which kind of "distribution lists" are you using? Microsoft TEams? Office 365 groups? 'Distribution lists' defined in your Office 365 Outlook contact list? Sharepoint groups? Other?

Also, how is defined the column 'Recipents' in your Sharepoint List? Multiperson? Multichoice? Single line of text?

Thanx!

[Anonymous]

Hello and thank you for the reply. 

I am pulling little over a dozen profiles in this flow. Most are users, there are two shared inboxes and one DL. No matter where in the order I put the DL it will fail. I have not tried parallel yet. I will give it a go and report back. 

Also can you tell me more about the Office 365 groups connector?

[Anonymous]

Hi and thank you for the reply.

The DL's are not part of a group or belong to any user account. They are simple email addresses that will forward any message to the listed recipients. There is no other function to them. I hope I am explaining that right. 

In the SharePoint list when an item is created there is a selection of recipients available that will have to be completed before submitting. It is Multi choice. At least one will have to be selected. It is a list of names. In the Flow I created a condition that looks for those names. Alas "If 'recipients name' is 'exactly' like 'Name' then ....". 

[efialttes]

Hi!

Understood. And you assigned the multichoice output (which I assume it is an Array) as the input of an 'Apply to each', right? Then inside the 'Apply to Each' you execute 'Get User Profile', correct? So you build an output string with all emails addreses separated by semicommas, then assign this string to the 'Send an email' 'To' input, right?

If not this way, please share a screenshot from your current flow design to better understand current logic

One more question: this multichoice stores usernames and DL email addresses, right?

IF so, you can distinguish inside your Apply to each if the input has email address format, or, it is a username. If username, then do 'Get User Profile' and append to your output string its email. If email, append it to your output string without 'Get user profile'.

Please note @yashag2255 suggestion is also a valid approach

Hope this helps

[Anonymous]

Yes, well almost:

Understood. And you assigned the multichoice output (which I assume it is an Array) as the input of an 'Apply to each', right? Then inside the 'Apply to Each' you execute 'Get User Profile', correct? So you build an output string with all emails addreses separated by semicommas, then assign this string to the 'Send an email' 'To' input, right?

Yes and yes. I actually get the user profile before the apply to each, not sure if that makes a difference. I am also pulling each user separately since I need a separate Dynamic Content token for each one. And yes. 

IF so, you can distinguish inside your Apply to each if the input has email address format, or, it is a username. If username, then do 'Get User Profile' and append to your output string its email. If email, append it to your output string without 'Get user profile'.

Yes, yes and how do I append to output string without 'Get user profile'?

[efialttes]

Hi!

Sorry, it must be me, but do not see any clear relationship between the 3-4 screenshots you shared. Which comes first, which comes next, etc? I can see also 2 different 'Apply to each' action blocks, right? Need more context info, sorry

THanx!

[Anonymous]

Sorry, i did not provide any context. The first image is a test flow I created to test this. I am testing it with a shared mailbox, a DL and a user (me). It works for the shared mailbox and me but throws an error with the DL.

the other two pictures are of a Flow that is actually working. These are all individual users though, not DL's. I wanted to show how i have it set up in the flow. This works but as there are more and more users added to it this can become unmanageable so I would like to use distribution lists instead of usernames. 

Also, our companies IT dept. is adamite about the naming conventions of those DL's. I am not sure if I can simply create groups or teams in place of the DLs and how the naming convention would be influenced. Do users have to accept being in the group or team in order to receive the emails. I can also imagine that they may be uncomfortable with the idea of being in a group or team that they are not an active member of. Just thinking out loud

[Anonymous]

bumping this for visibility

[yashag2255]

Hi @Anonymous 

I have a solution to your DL situation but this one could be a long one. Currently the problem being faced is none of the actions recognize this DL or a Security group or an O365 group at once. But the Graph API can do it. Reference here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/group-list?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http 

Now the action you are looking at is GET groups (not a group as we do not have an id for the group we just have the email)

So use the expression to filter in the URI as : https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups?$filter=mail+eq+'mail@domain.onmicrosoft.com' 

You can create a custom connector or use the HTTP action for that. Either way, it returns with a response with lot more details: 

This should return the ID of the group as shown in the SS below. 

Now that you have the ID, in the flow add an action as list group members and then select to pass custom ID and pass the ID from the outputs of the above action. 

Once you do that, it returns with a list of users in that specific DL and then you can use the append to string to append all their emails. 

Hope this Helps!

If this reply has answered your question or solved your issue, please mark this question as answered. Answered questions helps users in the future who may have the same issue or question quickly find a resolution via search. If you liked my response, please consider giving it a thumbs up. THANKS!