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esbeagley
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Stop processing rules for a file "When a file is created or modified"

I've set up a flow for my organisation to manage the creation of "event request" documents. The idea was for an email to be sent to anyone in the "events" team - by emailing the relevant mailbox - whenever a file is created or modified in a particular SharePoint library.

 

While this does what we need it to do, the issue this has created is that there are far too many emails being sent out. This is obviously due to the trigger for the Flow - every time someone opens a file and changes something another email has been sent out - but I was wondering if there was a way to stop processing triggers for a particular file for a certain amount of time? That way users would still get an email every so often when one of the request documents has been modified, but they won't be bombarded with countless emails every time a small change is made.


I've tried adding a delay to the flow, but all this does is delay the sending of the emails as the Flow keeps processing for further changes afterwards, so any help would be much appreciated!

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@esbeagley 

Let's suppose you want to send a list with the files created/modified on the last hour. You can schedule a flow starting at the beginning of each hour (be careful with the TimeZones, both the one you are using for execution and the one in the Sharepoint List)

Then you get current time, substract one hour, and take the 13 first characters (this includes date and hour, skipping minutes and seconds); store it in a variable (in my example it is called 'lastHour')

Then you get files from Library, apply a filter so the 13 first characters of 'Modified' column equals the variable 'lastHour'

Hope this helps

Flow_modified.png

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efialttes
Community Champion
Community Champion

@esbeagley 

If you just need to notify via email to your team when the file is created, you can add a condition to the flow, so if the File Creation date and File Modification date match the email is sent; if the do not match the email is not sent

Hope this helps

Did I make your day? If so, mark my response as 'Solution' !!!

También escribo sobre Power Automate en este Blog y en Twitter

Hi @efialttes 

 

Thanks for the quick response, unfortunately I'm not sure if this will help in our situation though. I'd like an email to be sent if a file is modified - so that the users are aware that a change was made to a request - but I'd like this to only happen once every 30-60 minutes.

 

Currently if the creator of the ticket makes a change, then goes away to do something else for 5 minutes, then returns and makes another change, this will send two emails in the span of 5 minutes, and this behaviour is clogging up the recipients' mailboxes.

 

Thanks again for your help!

@esbeagley 

Why don't you try with a different trigger? A recurrence trigger executed every hour can read all the files in the Library and check one by one if Modifications were made during this period

Hope this helps

Did I make your day? If so, mark my response as 'Solution' !!!

También escribo sobre Power Automate en este Blog y en Twitter

@efialttes 

 

That's an excellent idea! I'll give this a try.

 

Do you think it would be easier to send one email every half an hour with a list of files that were modified and their creators, or to send an individual email for every file that's been edited?

 

Thanks again 😊

@esbeagley 

Please note you don't need to send an email if no file changed in the last half an hour.

REgarding your question, I guess it is something up to your users. If I need to get notified when any file is modified, I would rather prefer one email with the whole list, I guess

Hope this helps

Did I make your day? If so, mark my response as 'Solution' !!!

También escribo sobre Power Automate en este Blog y en Twitter

I must admit I'm having some difficulty getting this to work - I'm not very au fait with Microsoft Flow yet so I'm kind of learning as I go!

 

I tried to create a scheduled flow to "Get files (properties only)" from the library, but I'm slightly stumped as to how you can then check those files for modifications. I tried to add a control condition that would check when each item was modified, but my only option is to set it to "less than" and then write the number 30 in the box for a value, and something tells me this won't work!

 

Many thanks again for your help.

@esbeagley 

Let's suppose you want to send a list with the files created/modified on the last hour. You can schedule a flow starting at the beginning of each hour (be careful with the TimeZones, both the one you are using for execution and the one in the Sharepoint List)

Then you get current time, substract one hour, and take the 13 first characters (this includes date and hour, skipping minutes and seconds); store it in a variable (in my example it is called 'lastHour')

Then you get files from Library, apply a filter so the 13 first characters of 'Modified' column equals the variable 'lastHour'

Hope this helps

Flow_modified.png

Did I make your day? If so, mark my response as 'Solution' !!!

También escribo sobre Power Automate en este Blog y en Twitter

Thank you so much for this!

 

I will give it some testing when I have time but by the looks of it this will be exactly what we need.

 

Thanks again! 😁

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