cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Reply
Anonymous
Not applicable

Use variable from email subject as the ID to update SPO list item

Hi All,

 

Is it possible in flow ( or other system) to use the substring of the subject of an email as the ID variable of a list item to be updated in SharePoint. That doesn’t make much sense so I’ll try to explain it a bit more. 

 

I have a list in SharePoint Online it has the standard columns including the ID and one additional column, “body”. I have a mailbox in office 365. Both are connected to flow.

 

What i need is when an email arrives in the mailbox a flow is triggered. The flow checks the subject line and extracts the number from the subject.  

It then uses that value as the ID of the list item in needs to update with say the body part of the email.  As an example an email with a subject line of #10 is received, it then copies the body of the email to the body column of ID 10 list item in SharePoint. 

 

Is that possible? If so how? 

 

I’m basically trying to make a 2 way communication system from within SharePoint. I.e. I update and item, it emails the user, they respond and it updates the correlating list item?

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

Tyrone

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

Accepted Solutions

Hi @Anonymous,

 

I was able to put this together to get you started. This is assuming that the SharePoint list item ID will be at the end of the email subject right after the # sign. I have outlined the steps below along with their respective screenshot and function.

  1. When a new email arrives. This is just the basic, out of the box step with no extra configuration.
    EmailSubject-1.JPG
  2. The next step is a Data Operations - Compose. I renamed it to include the name of the functions I'm using in it, which in my case the functions are last() and split(). For this step, I used the following formula, and it does is it splits the Email Subject at the # and then extract the string right after it.
    last(split(triggerBody()?['Subject'],'#'))

    EmailSubject-2.JPG
  3. The next step is the HTML to text. This step strips all the HTML markup and outputs plain text. In this step, select the Body from the "When a new email arrives" step. Keep in mind this step is preview and it might change once it becomes official.
    EmailSubject-3.JPG
  4. For the step, I used another "Data Operations - Compose", which I renamed to "Compose FirstSplit", and I used the first() and split() functions. The reason for these functions is because the "HTML to text" gets all the text from the email body, but it also gets the From and To information. The split() function splits all the text at the dashed line and the first() function retrieves all the text prior to the dashed line shown in the code below, revoming everything after the dashes. The code below is the function used in the Compose step along with its screenshot.
    first(split(body('Html_to_text'),'--------------------------------------------------------------------------------'))

    EmailSubject-4.JPG
  5. The next step is the SharePoint "Get item". In here you select your Site Address, List Name, and item Id. The item ID is retrieved in the "Data Operations - Compose" step from line 2 above.
    EmailSubject-5.JPG
  6. And the last step is the SharePoint "Update item". In here you select your Site Address, List Name, item Id, Title, and Body. For the item Id and Title, you can select them from the "Get items" step above. As for the Body, you use the output from the "Compose FirstSplit" step in line 4.
    EmailSubject-6.JPG

These steps should either get you exactly what you wanted or close to it. I tried to be as thorough as possible, but if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.

 

Regards,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

 

Fausto Capellan, Jr
Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution! Did my response help? Please give it a thumbs up!

View solution in original post

Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @faustocapellanj,

 

I now know where i went wrong, the code needs to be encapsulated in "". It also needed an @  in the beginning. So the code changed to: 

"@last(split(triggerBody()?['Subject'],'#'))"

Thank you so much for your help! 

 

Regards

 

Tyrone

 

View solution in original post

9 REPLIES 9
faustocapellanj
Memorable Member
Memorable Member

Hi @Anonymous,

 

In order to have an understanding of what you are trying to accomplish, I'd like to know where this 2-way communication originate. If it originates in SharePoint, I believe it is possible to achieve, but if it's not, then it might be difficult. For example, when an item is created or modified in SharePoint, you can reference the list item ID in the email subject and update the pertaining list item. Now, if the communication originates in the email, it might be difficult because when Flow runs the Get items step, the ID referred in the email subject may not exist.

Please let me know what you think. I can always try to create your scenario in my end to see how it workds.

 

Regards,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

Fausto Capellan, Jr
Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution! Did my response help? Please give it a thumbs up!
Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi,

 

Yes the originating email comes from sharepoint. This email is sent out from a shared mailbox. When the users responds to the email it will have the corresponding list id in the subject line. I know some email programs automatically prepend "FW" or "RE" to the subject line but can i create a formula in Flow to extract this data? 

 

Thank for your help. 

 

regards

 

Tyrone

 

Hi @Anonymous,

 

The only issue I see here is how to tell when a user replies to the email since there are no Flow actions to check for that. Also, I know you can extract the ID from the subject using the substring function, but you will have to know the position of the ID and its length of characters. There aren't functions like LEFT or RIGHT that can be used to avoid a hard coded number in the substring function.

I'll keep digging and see what I can find.

 

Regards,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

Fausto Capellan, Jr
Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution! Did my response help? Please give it a thumbs up!
Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @faustocapellanj,

 

Can i not use the " When a new email arrives" trigger in Flow? Then have a condition to say the subject needs to contain "#" and apply an action is it does? similar to my image:

Capture.PNG

 

What im not able to do or see how i do it is using the Substring to extract the number. I know the number will have a leaving "#" with a "." So an example subject would be: " #20. Notes have been added" And a reply would typically look like this: "RE:#20. Notes have been added". Not sure how to extract that info?

I appreciate the help on this. 

Regards

 

Tyrone

Hi @Anonymous,

 

I was able to put this together to get you started. This is assuming that the SharePoint list item ID will be at the end of the email subject right after the # sign. I have outlined the steps below along with their respective screenshot and function.

  1. When a new email arrives. This is just the basic, out of the box step with no extra configuration.
    EmailSubject-1.JPG
  2. The next step is a Data Operations - Compose. I renamed it to include the name of the functions I'm using in it, which in my case the functions are last() and split(). For this step, I used the following formula, and it does is it splits the Email Subject at the # and then extract the string right after it.
    last(split(triggerBody()?['Subject'],'#'))

    EmailSubject-2.JPG
  3. The next step is the HTML to text. This step strips all the HTML markup and outputs plain text. In this step, select the Body from the "When a new email arrives" step. Keep in mind this step is preview and it might change once it becomes official.
    EmailSubject-3.JPG
  4. For the step, I used another "Data Operations - Compose", which I renamed to "Compose FirstSplit", and I used the first() and split() functions. The reason for these functions is because the "HTML to text" gets all the text from the email body, but it also gets the From and To information. The split() function splits all the text at the dashed line and the first() function retrieves all the text prior to the dashed line shown in the code below, revoming everything after the dashes. The code below is the function used in the Compose step along with its screenshot.
    first(split(body('Html_to_text'),'--------------------------------------------------------------------------------'))

    EmailSubject-4.JPG
  5. The next step is the SharePoint "Get item". In here you select your Site Address, List Name, and item Id. The item ID is retrieved in the "Data Operations - Compose" step from line 2 above.
    EmailSubject-5.JPG
  6. And the last step is the SharePoint "Update item". In here you select your Site Address, List Name, item Id, Title, and Body. For the item Id and Title, you can select them from the "Get items" step above. As for the Body, you use the output from the "Compose FirstSplit" step in line 4.
    EmailSubject-6.JPG

These steps should either get you exactly what you wanted or close to it. I tried to be as thorough as possible, but if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.

 

Regards,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

 

Fausto Capellan, Jr
Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution! Did my response help? Please give it a thumbs up!
Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @faustocapellanj,

 

Thank you for the help. This is looking very promising but I’m  getting an error and I think it’s at the first stage? I’m not sure if it’s just me or perhaps an issue with my setup? 

 

When the flow runs its not getting the correct "ID" from the subject or rather it’s just showing me the "Compose" formula. I’m getting the dreaded 400 error aka "BadRequest". Looking at the log it looks like it can’t find the list item. Looking at the parameters that are input it’s got the formula as the id. At first I thought I may have selected the formula rather than the output but a) doesn’t look like you can select the compose formula. b) after checking I had selected the output. 

pic1.PNG

 

I then thought I would test this in another way to see what its really outputting. I created a new flow, with the same trigger and a send mail action. In the body of this send mail action I selected the “output “ of the compose formula.

test2.PNG

This resulted in  “ last(split(triggerBody()?['Subject'],'#')) ” as my body of my email. So it does look like the first step doesn’t run or doesn’t run correctly maybe? Or maybe im doing something wrong? 

pic2.PNG

 

Any thoughts?  

 

Kind regards

 

Tyrone

Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @faustocapellanj,

 

I now know where i went wrong, the code needs to be encapsulated in "". It also needed an @  in the beginning. So the code changed to: 

"@last(split(triggerBody()?['Subject'],'#'))"

Thank you so much for your help! 

 

Regards

 

Tyrone

 

Hi @Anonymous,

 

I forgot to format the expression with the double quotes and the @ sign at the beginning of it. My apologies. As for the Flow working as expected, I am really glad to hear that. Please mark the post as solved so that if anybody else has the same issue, they know how it can be solved.

 

Regards,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

Fausto Capellan, Jr
Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution! Did my response help? Please give it a thumbs up!

Good day. I know this post is 2 years old. However, I really would love to see the above solution for email attachments. My scenario is when an internal user sends an email attachment mentioning the ID number in the subject line we want to update the list item attachment column. Please let me know your feedback. Thank you in advance for your support. @faustocapellanj 

Helpful resources

Announcements

Exclusive LIVE Community Event: Power Apps Copilot Coffee Chat with Copilot Studio Product Team

It's time for the SECOND Power Apps Copilot Coffee Chat featuring the Copilot Studio product team, which will be held LIVE on April 3, 2024 at 9:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).     This is an incredible opportunity to connect with members of the Copilot Studio product team and ask them anything about Copilot Studio. We'll share our special guests with you shortly--but we want to encourage to mark your calendars now because you will not want to miss the conversation.   This live event will give you the unique opportunity to learn more about Copilot Studio plans, where we’ll focus, and get insight into upcoming features. We’re looking forward to hearing from the community, so bring your questions!   TO GET ACCESS TO THIS EXCLUSIVE AMA: Kudo this post to reserve your spot! Reserve your spot now by kudoing this post.  Reservations will be prioritized on when your kudo for the post comes through, so don't wait! Click that "kudo button" today.   Invitations will be sent on April 2nd.Users posting Kudos after April 2nd at 9AM PDT may not receive an invitation but will be able to view the session online after conclusion of the event. Give your "kudo" today and mark your calendars for April 3, 2024 at 9:30 AM PDT and join us for an engaging and informative session!

Tuesday Tip: Unlocking Community Achievements and Earning Badges

TUESDAY TIPS are our way of communicating helpful things we've learned or shared that have helped members of the Community. Whether you're just getting started or you're a seasoned pro, Tuesday Tips will help you know where to go, what to look for, and navigate your way through the ever-growing--and ever-changing--world of the Power Platform Community! We cover basics about the Community, provide a few "insider tips" to make your experience even better, and share best practices gleaned from our most active community members and Super Users.   With so many new Community members joining us each week, we'll also review a few of our "best practices" so you know just "how" the Community works, so make sure to watch the News & Announcements each week for the latest and greatest Tuesday Tips!     THIS WEEK'S TIP: Unlocking Achievements and Earning BadgesAcross the Communities, you'll see badges on users profile that recognize and reward their engagement and contributions. These badges each signify a different achievement--and all of those achievements are available to any Community member! If you're a seasoned pro or just getting started, you too can earn badges for the great work you do. Check out some details on Community badges below--and find out more in the detailed link at the end of the article!       A Diverse Range of Badges to Collect The badges you can earn in the Community cover a wide array of activities, including: Kudos Received: Acknowledges the number of times a user’s post has been appreciated with a “Kudo.”Kudos Given: Highlights the user’s generosity in recognizing others’ contributions.Topics Created: Tracks the number of discussions initiated by a user.Solutions Provided: Celebrates the instances where a user’s response is marked as the correct solution.Reply: Counts the number of times a user has engaged with community discussions.Blog Contributor: Honors those who contribute valuable content and are invited to write for the community blog.       A Community Evolving Together Badges are not only a great way to recognize outstanding contributions of our amazing Community members--they are also a way to continue fostering a collaborative and supportive environment. As you continue to share your knowledge and assist each other these badges serve as a visual representation of your valuable contributions.   Find out more about badges in these Community Support pages in each Community: All About Community Badges - Power Apps CommunityAll About Community Badges - Power Automate CommunityAll About Community Badges - Copilot Studio CommunityAll About Community Badges - Power Pages Community

Tuesday Tips: Powering Up Your Community Profile

TUESDAY TIPS are our way of communicating helpful things we've learned or shared that have helped members of the Community. Whether you're just getting started or you're a seasoned pro, Tuesday Tips will help you know where to go, what to look for, and navigate your way through the ever-growing--and ever-changing--world of the Power Platform Community! We cover basics about the Community, provide a few "insider tips" to make your experience even better, and share best practices gleaned from our most active community members and Super Users.   With so many new Community members joining us each week, we'll also review a few of our "best practices" so you know just "how" the Community works, so make sure to watch the News & Announcements each week for the latest and greatest Tuesday Tips!   This Week's Tip: Power Up Your Profile!  🚀 It's where every Community member gets their start, and it's essential that you keep it updated! Your Community User Profile is how you're able to get messages, post solutions, ask questions--and as you rank up, it's where your badges will appear and how you'll be known when you start blogging in the Community Blog. Your Community User Profile is how the Community knows you--so it's essential that it works the way you need it to! From changing your username to updating contact information, this Knowledge Base Article is your best resource for powering up your profile.     Password Puzzles? No Problem! Find out how to sync your Azure AD password with your community account, ensuring a seamless sign-in. No separate passwords to remember! Job Jumps & Email Swaps Changed jobs? Got a new email? Fear not! You'll find out how to link your shiny new email to your existing community account, keeping your contributions and connections intact. Username Uncertainties Unraveled Picking the perfect username is crucial--and sometimes the original choice you signed up with doesn't fit as well as you may have thought. There's a quick way to request an update here--but remember, your username is your community identity, so choose wisely. "Need Admin Approval" Warning Window? If you see this error message while using the community, don't worry. A simple process will help you get where you need to go. If you still need assistance, find out how to contact your Community Support team. Whatever you're looking for, when it comes to your profile, the Community Account Support Knowledge Base article is your treasure trove of tips as you navigate the nuances of your Community Profile. It’s the ultimate resource for keeping your digital identity in tip-top shape while engaging with the Power Platform Community. So, dive in and power up your profile today!  💪🚀   Community Account Support | Power Apps Community Account Support | Power AutomateCommunity Account Support | Copilot Studio  Community Account Support | Power Pages

Super User of the Month | Chris Piasecki

In our 2nd installment of this new ongoing feature in the Community, we're thrilled to announce that Chris Piasecki is our Super User of the Month for March 2024. If you've been in the Community for a while, we're sure you've seen a comment or marked one of Chris' helpful tips as a solution--he's been a Super User for SEVEN consecutive seasons!   Since authoring his first reply in April 2020 to his most recent achievement organizing the Canadian Power Platform Summit this month, Chris has helped countless Community members with his insights and expertise. In addition to being a Super User, Chris is also a User Group leader, Microsoft MVP, and a featured speaker at the Microsoft Power Platform Conference. His contributions to the new SUIT program, along with his joyous personality and willingness to jump in and help so many members has made Chris a fixture in the Power Platform Community.   When Chris isn't authoring solutions or organizing events, he's actively leading Piasecki Consulting, specializing in solution architecture, integration, DevOps, and more--helping clients discover how to strategize and implement Microsoft's technology platforms. We are grateful for Chris' insightful help in the Community and look forward to even more amazing milestones as he continues to assist so many with his great tips, solutions--always with a smile and a great sense of humor.You can find Chris in the Community and on LinkedIn. Thanks for being such a SUPER user, Chris! 💪 🌠  

Find Out What Makes Super Users So Super

We know many of you visit the Power Platform Communities to ask questions and receive answers. But do you know that many of our best answers and solutions come from Community members who are super active, helping anyone who needs a little help getting unstuck with Business Applications products? We call these dedicated Community members Super Users because they are the real heroes in the Community, willing to jump in whenever they can to help! Maybe you've encountered them yourself and they've solved some of your biggest questions. Have you ever wondered, "Why?"We interviewed several of our Super Users to understand what drives them to help in the Community--and discover the difference it has made in their lives as well! Take a look in our gallery today: What Motivates a Super User? - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

March User Group Update: New Groups and Upcoming Events!

  Welcome to this month’s celebration of our Community User Groups and exciting User Group events. We’re thrilled to introduce some brand-new user groups that have recently joined our vibrant community. Plus, we’ve got a lineup of engaging events you won’t want to miss. Let’s jump right in: New User Groups   Sacramento Power Platform GroupANZ Power Platform COE User GroupPower Platform MongoliaPower Platform User Group OmanPower Platform User Group Delta StateMid Michigan Power Platform Upcoming Events  DUG4MFG - Quarterly Meetup - Microsoft Demand PlanningDate: 19 Mar 2024 | 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM Central America Standard TimeDescription: Dive into the world of manufacturing with a focus on Demand Planning. Learn from industry experts and share your insights. Dynamics User Group HoustonDate: 07 Mar 2024 | 11:00 AM to 01:00 PM Central America Standard TimeDescription: Houston, get ready for an immersive session on Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. Connect with fellow professionals and expand your knowledge. Reading Dynamics 365 & Power Platform User Group (Q1)Date: 05 Mar 2024 | 06:00 PM to 09:00 PM GMT Standard TimeDescription: Join our virtual meetup for insightful discussions, demos, and community updates. Let’s kick off Q1 with a bang! Leaders, Create Your Events!  Leaders of existing User Groups, don’t forget to create your events within the Community platform. By doing so, you’ll enable us to share them in future posts and newsletters. Let’s spread the word and make these gatherings even more impactful! Stay tuned for more updates, inspiring stories, and collaborative opportunities from and for our Community User Groups.   P.S. Have an event or success story to share? Reach out to us – we’d love to feature you!

Users online (4,644)