Saving emails onto Sharepoint with unique naming

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Posted on by AC-28110956-0

Hi all,

I currently have a flow which automatically saves emails passing through a mailbox onto Sharepoint.

If the email contains an attachment, it will save the attachment and upload it onto Sharepoint as per the naming of the attachment name. (A)

If the email do not contain any attachment, it will save the email content as an eml file and upload it onto Sharepoint. The name of the eml file will be the Subject of the email. (B)

A does not have any problems as 99.99% of the time the name of the attachments received are always unique and different.

However, there will be certain times where B will have problems especially when the sender reply to the email thread (as the subject will become "RE: abcdefg"). For example, the first eml file saved will be "Subject". When the sender first reply to the thread, the eml file saved will be "RE: Subject". However, when the sender subsequently replies to the thread, the eml file saved will still be "RE: Subject". This naming convention REPLACES the previous eml files saved since the name of the eml file is no longer unique.

Does anyone have any suggestion on how I can possibly make the naming unique while at the same time retaining the aspect of my flow saving the attachment (A) / content (B) as something that is recognizable (ie. attachment name). Below is a screenshot of my current flow for B. If no = if no attachments.

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Building flows

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SudeepGhatakNZ 14,396 Most Valuable Professional on at

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You can add a unique identifier to the filenames. A common approach is appending a timestamp or a GUID (globally unique identifier) to the filename. You can generate a unique identifier using utcnow()

formatDateTime(utcNow(), 'yyyyMMddHHmmss')

This generates a timestamp like 20241206153045.

Concatenate the subject with the timestamp to create a unique filename. Use an expression like:

concat('RE-', triggerOutputs()?['subject'], '-', formatDateTime(utcNow(), 'yyyyMMddHHmmss'), '.eml')

Examples

The first email will be saved as Subject-20241206153045.eml.
The first reply will be saved as RE-Subject-20241206154010.eml.
The second reply will be saved as RE-Subject-20241206155020.eml.

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AC-28110956-0 12 on at

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Hi @SudeepGhatakNZ ,

Thanks for the suggestion. I just implemented your flow and ran it. However, my sharepoint reflected multiple eml files. Take a look below. I ran your concat file as per your suggestion, except adding the "RE-" part. May I know where did I go wrong?

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SudeepGhatakNZ 14,396 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Are you still struggling? Should I take a look at the expression or have you got it sorted?

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