Answered

Return First word in a string

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee

Hi I would like to build an expression in Flow that returns the first word in a string. Basically I want to get someone's first name from a user's Display name. I know I can use the action Get Profile to get someones first name instead of the Display Name but we use that field as user's Legal name and it doesn't always make sense.

Example User's Display Name in AD is Bob Smith but in AD we have his First name as Robert and last name as Smith.

When a flow triggers an email to him I would like the email to start with "Hi Bob" instead of "Hi Robert"

Thanks in Advance

Categories:

General topics

All responses (4)

Answers (1)

Sort by

Verified answer

v-xida-msft Microsoft Employee on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!
Hi @Anonymous,

I have made a test on my side and please take a try with the following workaround:

Add a proper trigger, here I use Flow Button trigger.

Add a "Get user profile (V1)" action, User (UPN) field set to email address or UPN of the user.

Add a "Compose" action, Inputs set to following formula:

indexOf(body('Get_user_profile_(V1)')?['DisplayName'],' ')
Add a "Compose 2" action, Inputs set to following formula:

substring(body('Get_user_profile_(V1)')?['DisplayName'],0,outputs('Compose'))

The Display Name content on my side as below:

Image reference:

The flow works successfully as below:

Best regards,

Kris
takolota1 4,980 Moderator on at

Like
a
(0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Answer Addendum

Thank you Kris for the original work-around with the Compose steps. Unfortunately, even the Compose steps didn't work when I tried using one for a "contains(string, ' ')".

Something was still wrong with the space ' '. If anyone runs into the same problem, I got it to work by using three apostrophes ''' '''. So "contains(string, ''' ''')".
takolota1 4,980 Moderator on at

Like
a
(0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

I've also made something for anyone trying to get a first name or first string from unclean data.
This returns most first names in proper format (examples: “jOhN SMITH” to “John” or “McJohnson SMITH” to “Mcjohnson” or “ jane ” to “Jane”)

With Compose Steps to avoid invalid space ‘ ’ entry in expressions
Compose_2:
int(indexOf(trim([Full Name Dynamic Content]), ' ')), 1)))

Compose_3:
contains(trim([Full Name Dynamic Content]), ''' ''')

Copy here ↓ & enter dynamic content with names wherever it says "[Full Name Dynamic Content]".
if(outputs('Compose_3'), trim(concat(substring(toupper(trim([Full Name Dynamic Content])), 0, 1), substring(toLower(trim([Full Name Dynamic Content])), 1, sub(outputs('Compose_2'), 1)))), trim(concat(substring(toupper(trim([Full Name Dynamic Content])), 0, 1), substring(toLower(trim([Full Name Dynamic Content])), 1))))

Example in an automatic response email that is sent out if the email field in a form has a value. There is also a back-up automatic email if something fails with the first name expression.

Use of the clean first name formula.
majofe 6 on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!
I found that
first(split(body('Get_user_profile_(V2)')?['displayName'],' '))
can accomplish this in one step.