Unanswered

Ignore duplicate email addresses when sending emails

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by Community Power Pla...

Hi I've built a flow that looks through my spreadsheet and sends 165 managers a table of their direct reports and what training they haven't completed yet.

This is what the Excel looks like:

Manager Email	Report	Oustanding training
manager.one@hotmail.com	Billy Bob	1, 2, 3, 4
manager.two@hotmail.com	Joe Doe	2, 6, 7
manager.one@hotmail.com	Sue Moe	1
manager.one@hotmail.com	Rob Thob	1, 2
manager.three@hotmail.com	Lazy Bones	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

This is my Flow:

The manager receives a table like:

Report	Outstanding
Billy Bob	1, 2, 3, 4
Sue Moe	1
Rob Thob	1, 2

My issue is that "manager.one@hotmail.com" will receive 3 duplicate emails instead of just the one. How can I prevent this? I've spent over an hour trying things like Initialize Variable/Union but I just get errors for that.

I appreciate any help, I'm still a novice trying to climb onto beginner so I'd appreciate if you don't assume I know what everything means as I'm still hack-jobbing things and not entirely understanding 'why' things happen yet.

Thank you

Categories:

Building flows

I have the same question (0)

All responses (25)

Answers (1)

Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

Like (1)

Report

Sort the Excel data source by manager Email. Then use a loop to process the entries. For each loop check first to see if the manager email is equal to the one from the last loop. If it is then process the entry (but don't send the email just append it to a string or array). If its a different manager then send the info in the stored string or array to the previous manager, save the current manager as the previous manager, and process the entry. Loop and repeat.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Power Pla... on at

Like (0)

Report

Hi Pstork, thank you for your answer. Sadly, I just don't understand what it means.

Are you saying I should do several apply to each? I searched 'loop' and it didn't show anything. Where and at what stage am I doing all of this? I'm a novice, no humble facades here.

Thanks for your help

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

Like (1)

Report

No I'm saying do one Apply to each after you have sorted the input by manager. Then as you process each line check to see if the manager is different from the last line. If it is then send the email. If its not then store the information in some way and get the next line.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Power Pla... on at

Like (0)

Report

Thank you Pstork,
"Sort input by manager" - how? - I already have it sorted in the Excel file
"Process each line" - is this a component or a condition? How, where does it go in my screenshot I've provided?
"Store the information some way" - this is a manual operation or how is this done?

I've been working on this part for over 1 hour but I've been working on this Flow for the past 6.5 hours almost non-stop. I would really appreciate a short guide or screenshot because I don't understand what you're saying stemming from my inexperience and fatigue.

Thank you again

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

Like (1)

Report

1) its not sorted in the file you displayed. the first and third row are manager.one and the second row is manger.two. There is an option to sort by a column when retrieving the rows from the Excel Table.

2) I'm assuming you are processing each row in the apply to each in your flow now. I'm just explaining what conditions and actions you need to apply to each row.

3) You can either store the information by appending it to a string variable or adding it to an array.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Power Pla... on at

Like (0)

Report

Ok, I see. That table is just an example I made in this forum to display the duplication and data examples. It is sorted in Excel.

The apply each is sending the email

I don't understand number 3.

I don't really think I'll understand what you're saying without a demonstration, you are speaking theoretically on what I could do, but as I don't possess the knowledge to make sense of it, it's really just many words for me but limited meaning. I struggle with instructions without examples in general, especially when I am lacking basic knowledge on the matter. Even a typed flow demonstration would help me, as I just don't understand where you want me to put these, at what stage, within where and with what syntax.

The flow I have now is:
Man. trig. flow -> List rows in table -> Select -> Create HTML Table -> Compose (with HTML table styling) -> Apply to each from excel value (Send an email v2).

Thanks again Pstork and I understand if you'd rather leave it here.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

Like (2)

Report

Here's a sample set of screenshots

varmanager stores the last manager processed

varTraining is an array that stores the rows as they are processed.

Apply to Each processes each row. If the varmanager is empty (first row processed) or the manager equals varmanager (last manager processed), then

Append the row to the varTraining array and update the last manager processed (this is really just to set it after the first row where varManager is blank)

If the manager doesn't equal varManager do the No side

Convert the varTraining array into a table and send the email to the varmanager. Then reset the varTraining array to the current row and varManager to the current row manager. (This is still inside the Apply to Each loop)

The Apply to each loop will now have sent emails to every manager except the last one. So when you exit the loop Create one last html table and send it to the varmanager. That will finish out the processing.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Power Pla... on at

Like (0)

Report
Hi Pstork, thank you for this detailed explanation.

In this run-through, this is the behaviour I experienced:
My email has 4 duplicates but it sent no emails, ignoring them altogether
My 2nd test inbox had 2 duplicates but sent 4 duplicate emails

I would want both inboxes to receive 1 email (there are 165 people who need to receive their individual email with varying number of reports).

I have attempted using this method: https://www.flowjoe.io/2020/12/17/remove-duplicates-from-a-power-automate-array-with-one-action/ and https://flowaltdelete.ca/2020/06/03/power-automate-expression-union-return-unique-values/ but although I manage to get it to run, the duplicates still occur.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

Like (0)

Report

I'm not sure how to help you further. I created an excel table with the output you provided in your post and my example works perfectly for me. I would go back and check your logic again. You haven't followed the example I provided.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Power Pla... on at

Like (0)

Report

This is what I attempted in another method, not your method. It errors when I use the duplicate output as saying it does not find the row with the email or does not recognise the array.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No