I have had some problems with complex/lookup data types in sharepoint lists so I now use simple data types in my lists and implement logic at higher layers.
If you do have a plain text email field, Flow wont allow you to insert a plain text field into an email field on another connector, for example if you want to send an email using the outlook connectors and you place your cursor in the "To" field of the send email block, the dynamic content will not allow you to select plain text fields.
But, for the connectors I have tested including approvals and outlook365 send email, you can actually use a plain text email and it works fine, you just need to do a little trick to get flow to allow you to place the plain text email source into the "To" field of the outlook connector.
First set your flow to connect to the data source and gather the plain text email field, in my case I use a sharepoint get item connector to get the user record with the email I want to send to. Next, insert on Outlook 365 Send an Email (or other connectors that use email/userProfile fields). In the outlook connector, place your cursor in the "To" field and notice that the dynamic content will not show the email field to allow you to insert it. Move your cursor to the "Body" field, and then the dynamic content should allow you to place your plain text email field in the body. Once you insert the email address field in the body, hover over it with your mouse and the hover text will show the expression that is used by flow to insert the email address field from the data source, it should look something like: body('GetItem')?['EmailAddress']
Where GetItem is the name of the connector you use to connect to get the item from the sharepoint list and EmailAddress is the name of the plaintext email field in the sharepoint list.
Now you can click in the "To" field of the outlook connector and in the dynamic content window, click on the expression tab to enter a formula and simply enter the same exact string that flow used when it inserted the email field into the body and it works fine. While there is some logic in flow that prevents you from inserting text fields into email/upn fields in connectors, the flow works just fine if you force the plain text email in using the workaround above.
Hi @ afewell,
Could you please share a screenshot of the configuration of your flow?
Do you mean you want to send an email using the outlook connectors and you place your cursor in the "To" field of the send email block, the dynamic content will not allow you to select plain text fields?
I have made a test on my side,and don't have issue that your mentioned, the screenshot of the flow as below:
Please check if you have click the "See more" of the action whicn contain plain text, if you click the "See more" of the action, you could see the dynamic content of the action.
Regards,
Alice Zhang