Unanswered

Nested repeating tables in word template

(2) Share

Report

Posted on by Community Power Pla...

Good afternoon all,

I am looking for a way to present an array of arrays in a printable, human readable way.

For example, I have a "Get Items" action which returns multiple results, and for each of those results, a second "Get Items" action runs which also returns multiple results. What I would like is to repeat a table of defined structure, 1-n times.

I am comfortable with Word Templates and repeating sections, but this limits me to a single table with 1-n rows. This is slightly different to my current needs.

The array of arrays is similar to the below in structure, with the number of "Thing's" being variable;

[
 {
 "Thing Name": "Thing 1",
 "Thing Contents": [
 {
 "Property 1": "123",
 "Property 2": "labore et dolore",
 "Property 3": "magna aliqua."
 },
 {
 "Property 1": "456",
 "Property 2": "Ut enim ad",
 "Property 3": "minim veniam,"
 },
 {
 "Property 1": "789",
 "Property 2": "quis nostrud exercitation",
 "Property 3": "ullamco laboris nisi"
 }
 ]
 },
 {
 "Thing Name": "Thing 2",
 "Thing Contents": [
 {
 "Property 1": "ABC",
 "Property 2": "Lorem ipsum",
 "Property 3": "dolor sit amet"
 },
 {
 "Property 1": "DEF",
 "Property 2": "consectetur adipiscing",
 "Property 3": "elit, sed do"
 },
 {
 "Property 1": "GHI",
 "Property 2": "eiusmod tempor",
 "Property 3": "incididunt ut"
 }
 ]
 },
 {
 "Thing Name": "Thing 3",
 "Thing Contents": [
 {
 "Property 1": "A1",
 "Property 2": "ut aliquip ex ea",
 "Property 3": "commodo consequat"
 },
 {
 "Property 1": "B2",
 "Property 2": "Duis aute irure",
 "Property 3": "dolor in reprehenderit"
 },
 {
 "Property 1": "C3",
 "Property 2": "in voluptate velit",
 "Property 3": "esse cillum dolore eu"
 }
 ]
 }
]

edit: Correction to structure, thankyou @eliotcole

This information needs to be presented in a human readable format, such as the two examples below;

----------------------------------------------

Merged table,

Thing 1
Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
123	labore et dolore	magna aliqua.
456	Ut enim ad	minim veniam,
899	quis nostrud exercitation	ullamco laboris nisi
Thing 2
Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
ABC	Lorem ipsum	dolor sit amet
DEF	consectetur adipiscing	elit, sed do
GHI	eiusmod tempor	incididunt ut
Thing 3
Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
ABC	ut aliquip ex ea	commodo consequat
DEF	Duis aute irure	dolor in reprehenderit
GHI	in voluptate velit	esse cillum dolore eu

------------ OR ---------------------

Discrete table repeated 1-n times.

Thing 1

Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
123	labore et dolore	magna aliqua.
456	Ut enim ad	minim veniam,
899	quis nostrud exercitation	ullamco laboris nisi

Thing 2

Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
ABC	Lorem ipsum	dolor sit amet
DEF	consectetur adipiscing	elit, sed do
GHI	eiusmod tempor	incididunt ut

Thing 3

Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
ABC	ut aliquip ex ea	commodo consequat
DEF	Duis aute irure	dolor in reprehenderit
GHI	in voluptate velit	esse cillum dolore eu

-----------------------------------------

The only solutions I can currently see are;

------------------------------------------

Limit to a 1d array and output a table such as,

Thing 1 / Item 1 / Property 1	123
Thing 1 / Item 1 / Property 2	labore et dolore
Thing 1 / Item 1 / Property 3	magna aliqua.
Thing 1 / Item 2 / Property 1	456
Thing 1 / Item 2 / Property 2	Ut enim ad
Thing 1 / Item 2 / Property 3	minim veniam,

and so on...

This looks awful, and does not meet the requirements.

--------------OR------------------------

Create a document per array item (single page document, each containing a discrete table), and merge the pages to a single document in another action.

Page 1.

Thing 1

Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
123	labore et dolore	magna aliqua.
456	Ut enim ad	minim veniam,
899	quis nostrud exercitation	ullamco laboris nisi

Page 2.

Thing 2

Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
ABC	Lorem ipsum	dolor sit amet
DEF	consectetur adipiscing	elit, sed do
GHI	eiusmod tempor	incididunt ut

Page 3.

Thing 3

Property 1	Property 2	Property 3
ABC	ut aliquip ex ea	commodo consequat
DEF	Duis aute irure	dolor in reprehenderit
GHI	in voluptate velit	esse cillum dolore eu

This will leave huge amounts of blank space on each page, and is not a good solution to the problem.

---------------------------------------------------

I have tried nesting repeating sections in the word template, however the connector only recognizes the first control.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Thankyou to @eliotcole for suggestions.

Screen shots of flow below for reference.

Spoiler (Highlight to read)

Categories:

Building flows

I have the same question (0)

All responses (20)

Answers (0)

eliotcole 4,363 Moderator on at

Like (0)

Report
Hi, @Tjeremiah , hope you don't mind, but I've a couple of hopefully easy requests to assist whomever helps you, here. If at all possible, could you please:

Edit your question with screenshots of your flow (obfuscated where necessary).

Just confirm that JSON (more below)

List or show any errors that the flow throws at you

Looking at that JSON, it doesn't appear to be nested arrays, more just extra objects within each array item. I've put the rest of this in a 'spoiler' to make it easier on the eyes in terms of the thread, however ... basically if you could confirm if that's the extent of the arrays on hand here, it does only look like one level of array right now.

Spoiler (Highlight to read)

I've taken the liberty of sticking the square brackets on what you showed above, and plopping it in a Javascript code block:

[ { "Thing Name": "Thing 1", "Thing Contents": { "Property 1": "123", "Property 2": "456", "Property 3": "789" } }, { "Thing Name": "Thing 2", "Thing Contents": { "Property 1": "ABC", "Property 2": "DEF", "Property 3": "GHI" } }, { "Thing Name": "Thing 3", "Thing Contents": { "Property 1": "A1", "Property 2": "B2", "Property 3": "C3" } } ]

Was that what you meant? Or had you constructed the JSON just slightly off?

Arrays within that might look more like this:

[ { "Thing Name": "Thing 1", "Thing Contents": [ { "Item": 1, "Property": "123" }, { "Item": 2, "Property": "456" }, { "Item": 3, "Property": "789" } ] }, { "Thing Name": "Thing 2", "Thing Contents": [ { "Item": 1, "Property": "ABC" }, { "Item": 2, "Property": "DEF" }, { "Item": 3, "Property": "GHI" } ] } ]

Or this:

[ { "Thing Name": "Thing 1", "Thing Contents": [ "123", "456", "789" ] }, { "Thing Name": "Thing 2", "Thing Contents": [ "ABC", "DEF", "GHI" ] } ]

I've taken the liberty of sticking the square brackets on what you showed above, and plopping it in a Javascript code block: [ { "Thing Name": "Thing 1", "Thing Contents": { "Property 1": "123", "Property 2": "456", "Property 3": "789" } }, { "Thing Name": "Thing 2", "Thing Contents": { "Property 1": "ABC", "Property 2": "DEF", "Property 3": "GHI" } }, { "Thing Name": "Thing 3", "Thing Contents": { "Property 1": "A1", "Property 2": "B2", "Property 3": "C3" } } ] Was that what you meant? Or had you constructed the JSON just slightly off? Arrays within that might look more like this: [ { "Thing Name": "Thing 1", "Thing Contents": [ { "Item": 1, "Property": "123" }, { "Item": 2, "Property": "456" }, { "Item": 3, "Property": "789" } ] }, { "Thing Name": "Thing 2", "Thing Contents": [ { "Item": 1, "Property": "ABC" }, { "Item": 2, "Property": "DEF" }, { "Item": 3, "Property": "GHI" } ] } ] Or this: [ { "Thing Name": "Thing 1", "Thing Contents": [ "123", "456", "789" ] }, { "Thing Name": "Thing 2", "Thing Contents": [ "ABC", "DEF", "GHI" ] } ]

Is it actually either of the examples that I pushed out for you, there?

Also, a quick edit with a potential work around:

HTML Table

Have you tried using the HTML table function?

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

Like (1)

Report

Thanks for the advice!

Yes, I have used HTML tables, where I am embedding the information into the body of an email. My understanding is that the word connector does not have the ability to parse HTML code, example HERE . If I could do so, it would be a possible solution, as I could find ways to manipulate the HTML structure within power automate.
I have also toyed with generating XML code within Power Automate and using that as the content of creating a file. From memory this was a laborious process though, and vulnerable to bugs. errors from the developer side.

The intention is to generate a printable document, and printing an email comes with the lack of control on formatting etc. that you get with a Word document or PDF. It also makes it harder for me to control with normal SharePoint document management practices.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
eliotcole 4,363 Moderator on at

Like (1)

Report

I absolutely understand your concern there.

You could try to leverage the excel API to beautify the new file, then use this (potentially not working!) Graph API call to convert the Excel to a PDF.

However that might be a bit painful.

Anyway, I'm working on a solution which will present your arrays as three separate arrays, that part isn't an issue. That can then be made in to your second preferential example, which looks better to me.

What is an issue is how you even get the template thing to make any tables. 😅 Ah ... I see, we're talking Dynamics 365 templates that I don't have a subscription for. 🤕

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

Like (2)

Report

In my experience with the Word Template action, once you wrap your head around the tagging process its very simple.

I always name my tags to match the key in a key:object pair (I don't know if that is strictly necessary)

I then switch to array inputs, and use an array variable to populate the repeating table.

The solution I 'want' to my problem above is to nest repeating sections, something like

Ok, I tried this before and did not see the nested table at all. I must have done something different in building the demonstration here.
Ill work on this and see if I can get it to work after all!

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

Like (0)

Report

@eliotcole wrote:
I absolutely understand your concern there.

You could try to leverage the excel API to beautify the new file, then use this (potentially not working!) Graph API call to convert the Excel to a PDF.

However that might be a bit painful.

Anyway, I'm working on a solution which will present your arrays as three separate arrays, that part isn't an issue. That can then be made in to your second preferential example, which looks better to me.

What is an issue is how you even get the template thing to make any tables. 😅 Ah ... I see, we're talking Dynamics 365 templates that I don't have a subscription for. 🤕
Sorry, yes its the "Premium" word connector. 🙄

Also, on breaking the single array to 3 separate arrays, if I were to go down this path I would need to do so in a dynamic way, as it will not always be 3, it may be 1 or 100 or anything in-between.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
eliotcole 4,363 Moderator on at

Like (1)

Report

Cool, cool ... just quickly ... is there an 'ideal' way that your data would be set in before you push it into the Word Template?

Like, I'm imagining this shouldn't need to be done in Apply to each runs once you have the data. Look at that button on the right on the Table_Repeat / Table_Repeat nest box.

So, what I'd suggest you do, is fill that in manually, how it would work if you had to do that each time ... then click that button, and show me here what it looks like.

Because I 100% believe that I can build that exact input for you without using loops. (select and possible xpath stuff are amazing here)

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

Like (1)

Report

I absolutely will do. It's 11pm in Victoria, Australia so will have to be a tomorrow job!

Thanks for all you input so far!!

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
eliotcole 4,363 Moderator on at

Like (0)

Report

Oh, yeah, like I say elsewhere, we're doing this a much more data agnostic way.

I can make it so that it builds the perfect structure each time.

Sleep well! 👍

@Tjeremiah wrote:

@eliotcole wrote:

I absolutely understand your concern there.

You could try to leverage the excel API to beautify the new file, then use this (potentially not working!) Graph API call to convert the Excel to a PDF.

However that might be a bit painful.

Anyway, I'm working on a solution which will present your arrays as three separate arrays, that part isn't an issue. That can then be made in to your second preferential example, which looks better to me.

What is an issue is how you even get the template thing to make any tables. 😅 Ah ... I see, we're talking Dynamics 365 templates that I don't have a subscription for. 🤕

Sorry, yes its the "Premium" word connector. 🙄

Also, on breaking the single array to 3 separate arrays, if I were to go down this path I would need to do so in a dynamic way, as it will not always be 3, it may be 1 or 100 or anything in-between.

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

Like (0)

Report
So I have done some more testing on this, and the inner repeated table is not getting populated.
The input array looks like this,
[ { "Tag 1": "Value 1", "Tag 2": "Value 2", "Tag 3": [ { "nest_1": "ABC", "nest_2": "DEF", "nest_3": "GHI" }, { "nest_1": "JKL", "nest_2": "MNO", "nest_3": "PQR" } ] }, { "Tag 1": "Value 4", "Tag 2": "Value 5", "Tag 3": [ { "nest_1": "123", "nest_2": "456", "nest_3": "789" }, { "nest_1": "987", "nest_2": "654", "nest_3": "321" } ] } ]
The action accepted the inputs, and generated the document, but the output did not contain the nested array at all,
Looking at the manual input,
I would expect to see a nested input if this were possible, but I do not.
Manually adding an item results in this,
Where if the nesting was recognized, I would expect to see something like this (excuse ms paint editing),
At this point I don't think it is an input structure issue, but a limitation of the word template action/ Word connector.

I will pursue the XML and graph API paths to get the output I want.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
eliotcole 4,363 Moderator on at

Like (0)

Report

Just type some example details in those fields on the Populate a word template action, and click that tiny 't' icon, that's what I'd like to see how it fills that up. 🙂

Was this reply helpful? Yes No