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Automatically email reminders from Excel

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Posted on by anga

I'm trying to set up a spreadsheet with tasks that automatically email task owners on a specific date. My table called Tasks within my Excel spreadsheet has these columns: Task, Reminder Date, Due Date, Email.

I'm new to Power Automate and have tried to create a flow for the first time but have run across various errors. After a day of digging and reading solutions online I still haven't figured it out.

My flow set-up:

Recurrence

List rows present in a table: One Drive for Business, OneDrive - name, File, Tasks

Select: From value; Map email

Compose: Inputs with Expression

union(body('Select'),body('Select'))

Apply to each:

Select outputs from previous steps: Outputs

Filter Array: see screenshot for the rest.

The expression in the Duedate value for the HTML table is:

formatDateTime(item()['Reminder Date'],'yyyy-MM-dd')

The error I receive upon testing is on the HTML table:

The execution of template action 'Create_HTML_table' failed. The column values could not be evaluated: 'In function 'formatDateTime', the value provided for date time string '' was not valid. The datetime string must match ISO 8601 format.'. Screenshot of flow.jpg

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Ellis Karim 11,122 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

I have replied here:
Re: have trouble with Date Time formating in filte... - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)
ina295 32 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

@ekarim2020 would you like to check my case here please ? ☹️
Re: have trouble with Date Time formating in filte... - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

i have so much trouble with filter array not showing the result,....
its been 4 days i tried to fix but no solved yet..
ina295 32 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

Flow save failed with code 'InvalidTemplate' and message 'The template validation failed: 'The inputs of template action 'Filter_array' at line '1 and column '1950' is invalid. Action 'Apply_to_each' must be a parent 'foreach' scope of action 'Filter_array' to be referenced by 'repeatItems' or 'items' functions.'.'.

it says like this @ekarim2020

whats wrong with the formula in mine ? 😕
Ellis Karim 11,122 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

Hi @ina295

Make sure you are using the @ symbol at the start of the expression:

@and(not(empty(item()?['Reminder Date'])), equals(item()?['Email'], items('Apply_to_each')?['Email']))

Ellis
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ina295 32 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

@ekarim2020

and(not(empty(item()?['Reminder Date'])), equals(item()?['Email'], items('Apply_to_each')?['Email']))

how to type in Advance mode ? its says not compatible with template language expression
Ellis Karim 11,122 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

Hi @anga ,

Some of your Excel data contains empty Reminder Dates. What is a happening is that the formatDateTime function is trying to convert an empty string (Reminder Date) into a date format and this is what is producing the error:

You will need to decide how you want to handle empty Reminder Dates.

You could edit the Filter Array action in advanced mode and add a second condition so that it does not select records where the Reminder Date is empty:

The expression would be something like:

@and(not(empty(item()?['Reminder Date'])), equals(item()?['Email'], items('Apply_to_each')?['Email']))

Hope this helps.

Ellis
anga 4 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

Thank you. I have tried multiple variations of the date on my spreadsheet that's located on OneDrive and in the expression with no luck. I tried it as I have it in the attached screenshots and am still receiving the error.

Here is some info and screenshots:
Ellis Karim 11,122 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

Hi @anga ,

Please also check that the date column in Excel is set to Date:

See also: Re: DateTime Format List rows present in a table - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

Ellis
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anga 4 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

Thank you. I neglected to mention that I do have that set up in the "List rows present in an Excel table" step. When I run the test on the flow that portion of the flow succeeds.
Ellis Karim 11,122 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Automatically email reminders from Excel

Hi @anga ,

Try specifying the DateTime format as ISO 8601:

Ellis
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