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Integration Flow/Power Automate/Teams/Email - Variable does not update

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Posted on by SamPAC

Hi! I am very new to Microsoft Power Automate (or Flow??). I am not a programmer so my apologies in advance for any silly query. I am trying to build my very first workflow to compile a daily digest of any change to a SharePoint folder (reporting only on added/modified/deleted files), and to post one daily message on a channel in Teams (+send an email to the mailing list).

I managed to put together the workflow presented here, largely inspired from examples found on the web. It fires properly, does not return any error, and posts in Teams. BUT:

1) the variable FilesListHtml does not seem to pick up any change to my folder;

2) the 'Send an email notification (V3)' module does not send any email.

(Overall overview of the workflow)

(Zooming into the first part)

(Zooming into the second part)

concat expanded: concat('<li><a href="',item()?['{Link}'],'" >',item()?['{FilenameWithExtension}'],'</a></li>')

Result of the posting in Teams:

"test
000
Documents/General/
XXX.XXX@XXX.com
2020-07-23T00:00:00.0000000Z"

I don't know what I am doing wrong... Would anyone have any idea please? this would be so helpful.

Thank you!! S.

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Using flows

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SamPAC 16 on at

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And this was the last screenshot of the workflow - Not sure why the original post did not display it!

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JohnAageAnderse 1,986 on at

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Hello @SamPAC

In your action "Get files (properties only)", use the field "Limit Entries to Folder" to point to your folder! By doing that you will have no need for the "Filter Array" action and also avoid the incorrect comparision in there (should be Contains) 🙂

You flow will not catch any deleted files - as they are deleted 🙂 but let's discuss that issue after you get the above right.

Kind regards, John

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SamPAC 16 on at

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Thank you very much for the suggestions @JohnAageAnderse.
I indicated the path to the folder and removed the filter array indeed.
I feel there is something missing. Am I calling the correct output with 'value'?
The workflow I now have returns no 'error' but doesn't do anything at all.

Thanks again and kind regards, Sam

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SamPAC 16 on at

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Actually - sorry for not seeing this before (it was late 🙂) the process was failing as it could not find the folder, even though the web address I gave was correct. Now I understand it has to be a folder picked from within the interface (annoying!) and the error is fixed: the flow fires again.
The latest status is this:

1) In terms of notifications,
* As indicated in the picture below with the ticks, the middle and right branches trigger (so I get an email and a post on Teams). However, I would love it if the left branch could trigger too, because that means that other people than just me could receive the notification by email.
* Also, is there a smart way of inputting the recipient list rather than me manually adding the emails? I would like to automatically add the list of emails for members belonging to that specific channel or team.

2) The content of the notification is not what I'm after.
* The flow picks up on the files I add to the folder so I'm happy. However, it seems like the time origins for the file list is taken as at 23/07/2020 09:00 and does not reset after the flow triggers. What I mean is: If I add two files A and B to the folder, the flow will report successfully on the addition. If subsequently I modify B only, the flow still reports both A and B, although it should only report B.
* Also, as you rightfully anticipated @JohnAageAnderse , the flow doesn't pick up on the deleted files...

Could anyone help with a tip please? I feel I'm really close!!
Kind regards, Sam

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JohnAageAnderse 1,986 on at

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Hello @SamPAC

Good that you found the correct way to indicate the folder 🙂 What you then see in the "Limit entries to folder" field is how it should look like, if you later decides to use a variable to pass in a folder path.

About emails to use - you can take email addresses from somewhere else, collect them into an Array variable, and then use them in a "Send email" action using an expression such as "join(variables('RecipientsList'), ';')" - I use semicolon as I am in Europe 🙂

That you get an error is due to an incorrect value in the variable "RecipientsList" or it is used incorrectly. What is the content of the variable?

When you write that the flow takes both files, even after you modified one - did you check that the Modified date for the other to see why it was included. If for example you modified both on the same day, then later the same day modified one of them, then your flow would still include both if it was running on the same day.

You can always check your flow run and see what values were used and maybe discover the issue 🙂

Kind regards, John

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SamPAC 16 on at

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Thank you for the precious tips John!
I will prioritise resolving the file modification detection for now, as it's the most pressing, and will work on your other comments later.
Indeed, I tried to add or modify files on 2 consecutive days, to no avail. In fact, I'm using the 'Recurrence' module set to a frequency of 1 minute as I'm still in testing phase (I will switch to Day later) so I already knew the cause of the problem must be elsewhere.
In fact, I don't think I'm using the correct time module, because it's requiring a 'start time' that seems to be hard-coded and cast in stone. Is there a way to force a reset/overwrite of that initial value after the flow triggers? Or should this be approached entirely differently?
This is what the time-related modules and variables look like at present:
OVERVIEW

ZOOMING ON EACH RED BLOB

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JohnAageAnderse 1,986 on at

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Hello @SamPAC

Set the recurrence interval to once per day, as you can manually run it manually using the Test option (inside the flow editor) or the Run option (outside the flow editor).

The start time just indicates when the interval should be counted from, so the date you have is fine.

The expression you are using to get the StartOfToday should be "startofday(utcnow())" - that will give you the start of the current day, today that is! When you have corrected the expression, try modifying one of the documents and run your flow.

Kind regards, John

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SamPAC 16 on at

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That's brilliant, it seems like it's working!
I will give it a few more days of testing to see how it goes.
Thank you so much @JohnAageAnderse , I'm not sure how I could have guessed this but glad it's that easy.
I think I've got now a sort of MVP that will really make my colleagues' life easier. After my leave I will try and improve on the other issues I want to resolve (automate the retrieval of email list, etc.). For 'deleted files', I've got a separate, very simple flow to enable the task. It'd be more elegant to have everything in one flow but that can wait.
Thanks again for all your help.
Kind regards, Sam

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