Unanswered

How to Send an Email when a Person or Group is added to a SharePoint List?

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by lundboej

Hi there,

I had a workflow that was working for the better part of a year that just... stopped working entirely. (It would get caught in infinite loops, sending multiple emails per second, despite Flow Checker having no indication that this might happen) So after trying everything, I am attempting to rebuild.

What I want is this: When a user puts in a name into a column (data type: Person or Group) on a SP List, to send an email to that person, one time. The way I currently have it is a hidden column that is also a Person or Group, with the logic being that if an Item is Modified and the two columns don't match, then send an email and update the hidden column to match the original column so it doesn't fire off every time.

One new thing I noticed is that the flow is forcing me to Select an output from previous steps, something that wasn't forced on me when I built this last fall. Could that be the problem?

The current behavior: Every flow run will be "Successful" but no emails send because the condition turns out false:

Any help would be appreciated. I'm at my wit's end. Thank you

Categories:

Building flows

I have the same question (0)

All responses (5)

Answers (1)

eliotcole 4,363 Moderator on at

Like (0)

Report
Well, it might loop if (and I may have misread) you have the flow acting on a create/modified trigger, then the flow is updating the item. Because if that's the case, it's going to trigger it again, isn't it?

Again, I could be wrong.

I would advise removing the field comparison part in the Condition action, it seems like it's not doing you any favours.

Speaking generally, and if there is a requirement to authenticate / check / something whether or not they're OK to receive the email, why not:
List Authenticated Users Separately - Keep a separate list of folks that are authorised (or whatever the criteria is), for this example I'll call it userList.
Get items from userList - So run a Get items action on the new list of people.
Filter Authenticated Users By Entered User - So your filter is a kind of condition, as anything over 0 results means they're good to go.
Condition on Filter length() Greater than 0 - If there are any results for the person in the list, there will be more than 0 items in the Filter action.
Yes Branch - Send Email
No Branch - Whatevs, innit. 😉

For step #3 you could (and should) do this in the ODATA filter on step #2. That will save a flow action, and shorten the data retrieved. However use a filter first, to get the logic squared out in your head.

I know that's general speaking, but hopefully it can help.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
lundboej 45 on at

Like (0)

Report

Thanks! I'll test these out.

-Erik

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
lundboej 45 on at

Like (0)

Report

Question - if the list of users could be the entire Outlook address book, how would you get Get Items to recognize that?

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

ScottShearer 25,270 Most Valuable Professional on at

Like (0)

Report

@lundboej

If your goal is to take action/send an email only when the person or group column has changed, there is an easy way - see my example below. My person or group column is called Employee. The Flow will only run when the item has been modified.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
lundboej 45 on at

Like (0)

Report

Thank you so much, Scott! That seemed to work for my purposes 🙂

Was this reply helpful? Yes No