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Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

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Posted on by SupplyChainKL

Hi everyone!

I was having a little trouble using thee "starts with" condition in my flow. Here's some of my previous posts as to what I am building. This should probably be super easy for you guys.

One of my conditions to update certain columns I was wanting it to be if the email starts with certain text. Whenever I use the "startswith" function, even though I started the email with the specific words, it always comes back as false. I tried doing it is a function startswith(variable('BodyString'),'MarkAsNew') and on the equals put true (from the function tab) as well and that did not work.

What am I doing wrong?

Example test email I sent myself:

Here's the flow's guts:

Closer look at the condition:

Thank you kindly,

Categories:

Business Process Flows

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Hardesh15 7,087 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Re: Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

@SupplyChainKL

Use compose action and supply input of your email body then run flow and see output of compose action. Is it really started with this text?

Thanks

Hardesh

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abm abm 32,600 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

Hi @SupplyChainKL

You didn't mention about what error you are getting here? Could you please expand the IF condition and see what error flow is returning. You might be receiving the email as html format. So in that case you need to convert to HTML to text and compare. Here is the test I did and it is working as expected.

Here is my test result

Please try the above and let me know the results.

Thanks

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SupplyChainKL 44 on at

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Re: Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

Hi @abm

That worked! I added in the step that you had to convert the html into plain text.

So this might be a stupid question but what is the difference between something being formatted as an HTML and plain text? I am really enjoying learning all of this stuff and I am taking baby steps!

Thank you,

KL

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SupplyChainKL 44 on at

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Re: Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

Hi @Hardesh15 !

Thank you for your help! I think it was the HTML thing mentioned by user abm. Or at least, that seemed to work. I can't remember what the error was to test your theory. Sorry!

Best,

KL

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abm abm 32,600 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

Hi @SupplyChainKL

Glad to hear that it is working as expected. So client can receive email as HTML or plain. Looks like your email client default config is HTML emails. So if you add a compose and map the body you can see it returns the email body contains the HTML tags. So to clean up I suggested to use the HTML to text. Hope it make sense.

If your problem has solved, please go ahead and mark the post as solved by clicking “Accept as Solution” so that this thread will be marked for other users to easily identify!

Thanks

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SupplyChainKL 44 on at

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Re: Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

So basically, the HTML text formatting is a different format than the flow is comparing against? So then it was returning as always not matching (false) even though it was supposed to be true?

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abm abm 32,600 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

Hi @SupplyChainKL

So when flow compares the body and if the email is an html format the beginning tag starts with <html> hence your condition will be always false. As I mentioned earlier add a compose and map the body of the flow. Run the flow. Check the run history and the compose step. You can see the actual HTML body.

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SupplyChainKL 44 on at

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Re: Using "startswith" Condition from Email Body

That makes sense! Thank you!

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