Monitoring Response Time in Outlook/Exchange

[helpmeplease123]

Hi,

A manager at our company has asked if we can have a report generated to show how long it takes an individual employee to respond to emails received in a shared mailbox. I was wondering if there was a way to generate this report using Power Automate or if there was an alternative method? Please let me know since I know there isn't a built-in function available in Outlook or Exchange. Thank you!

[v-qiaqi-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @helpmeplease123,

There is no OOTB feature to generate a report on how long it takes a user to respond to an email in Power Automate currently.

The key to your issue is that there is no direct way to track if an email has been responded to via Flow.

So to solve this issue, you should try something workaround:

1. Create a SharePoint list to track incoming emails - when a new email comes in, an item gets added to the list
   1. The list item can include the subject and body of the email as well as attachments.
2. The list has a Person column where you can enter your needed response email address
   1. Have a check box in the list - when the check box is checked, save the respond time to your date time column(Need to add a condition to check if the Yes/No column is checked. Remember to set the Yes/No column to false by default.)

[VictorIvanidze]

Hi @v-qiaqi-msft,

in fact there exists direct way to track if an email has been responded to via Flow: 

you can use MS GRAPH request to retrieve this MAPI property: PR_LAST_VERB_EXECUTED (0x10810003) 

[CatiaB]

As @v-qiaqi-msft has explained, an audit log is a great solution which does not take too long to set up. You can create an item in a Sharepoint list when an email is received and use another column to record the time the mail was received and the same can be done when a mail is sent. Maybe consider using a process identifier (such as 1,2 or a,b) to help differentiate which is item is the email coming in and which one was sent.  

[VictorIvanidze]

Hi @CatiaB,

>and the same can be done when a mail is sent. 

could you please explain how to detect if the sent email is a reply or it's just a new one? 

[CatiaB]

A method off the top of my head would be to compare the name of the sender and the subject of the email to each item in the list, if there is a match for both then it must be a reply, otherwise it's new. 

[VictorIvanidze]

Aha! And what if a sender sends 10 emails with the same subject? Or, even worse. they sends 10 different messages with no subject at all? 

[CatiaB]

I guess even if the same subject persists then it will always be a reply, provided the sender name is consistent. Perhaps a condition can be included that if no subject is provided, it is always treated as a new mail. 
If the purpose of the automation is just to track how quickly employees reply then perhaps these circumstances do not need to be considered. All depends on the need. 

[Deepak_cbe2989]

Hi,

Could you please show me the actual flow which tracks the email is responded or not, i have tried all the possibilities but not is working out