@darkknightRises
Manual Trigger
I'm assuming your flow is going to be triggered using the When a New Item is Created trigger. However, for now, while you are building and testing your flow. Use a manual trigger. You can replace it with the Automated trigger once you've confirmed your flow works and you are ready to go live. A manual trigger will make easy to trigger your flow and run tests. Personally, I like to always keep a copy of a Manually triggered flow so I can run additional tests (in the future—should I want to edit the flow) and troubleshoot should I need to.
Add a Get Item action and select the SP Site and List name of your Projects list. Insert an ID of an existing project in your list to use for testing.
In my Client Tracker list—I'm going to use the Assigned To user's email address to look up the employee in my Employee Tracker list.
The Assigned To column is a person column. Add a Compose action to store the Email address or whichever value you are using in your case to look up the item in the other SP list. This can help with troubleshooting.
Get Employee Info
Add a Get Items action to get your Employee list. Tip It's best practice to add a Filter Query (when possible) to reduce the overall items returned. This is especially important if you have a large list.
You will need to use the internal column name of the column storing the value that you'll be using to look up the employee by. Keep in mind that the internal column name may not always match the name displayed in your Sharepoint list. If you aren't sure how to get the Internal Column name, you can refer to this section of one of my YT Tutorials.
Not sure how to write a filter query? Check out this YT Short.
In my Employee Tracker I also have a person column (Profile).
Add a filter query. If you are using a person column like I am, you'll need to add a forward slash to your internal column name and EMail to look up the email address.
[InternalColumnName]/EMail eq '[LookUp Dynamic Content]'
Return Item Count
Whenever I use a Filter Query in a Get Items action, I always like to return the count of items returned in a Compose action. This is helpful when building a flow and can also be used to troubleshoot your flow.
Insert a Compose action. Add an Expression. Use the length() function.
Select the Dynamic content tab and insert the value dynamic content from the Get Items action into the length() function.
Run a test. Review the output of the Compose action.
Condition Check (optional)
If there is a chance that the Get Items action doesn't return any items, to prevent your flow from failing—add a Condition action.
If items have returned (aka there is number stored in the Compose action—that is not equal to 0), add the rest of your actions to the Yes branch. If not, do nothing.
Send an Email (V2)
Whenever using a Send an Email (V2) action in my flows—I always insert my email address into the recipient field while testing. I will either insert dynamic content of the actual recipient into the Subject Line and/or body of the email.
Be aware of which action you are inserting dynamic content from.
Also, depending on the type of dynamic content you enter into your Send an Email (V2) action—Power Automate may automatically add an Apply to Each action. This will happen if you insert any content from the Get Items action (the Employee SP List).
This is because the Get Items action will always return an array of items—even if it's a single item. To avoid the Apply to Each action (because it's not necessary) you'll need to use expressions to return your dynamic content. I cover how to do this in this YT Tutorial: 3 Mistakes YOU 🫵 are Making with the Apply to Each Action in your Microsoft Power Automate Flow
In this video tutorial I’ll go over how to avoid these common mistakes when using the Apply to Each action in a Power Automate flow:
1️⃣ Looping through a Single Item
2️⃣ Creating Unnecessary Nested Loops
3️⃣ Looping through an Unfiltered Array
At the end of the video I share a few helpful insights when it comes to using the Apply to Each action in your flow.
IN THIS VIDEO:
✅ How to avoid the Apply to Each action with a single item array
✅ How to use the item() function to access dynamic content in an array
✅ How to prevent unnecessary nested Apply to Each action loops
✅ How to use the Select action
✅ How to convert an array to a string with the Select action
✅How to use the Filter Query field
✅ How to count the number of items in an array
✅ How to use a condition control
✅ How to use the concurrency control
✅ How to set a top count
✅ How to use Compose actions for troubleshooting
Hope this helps!
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