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Send an email on a schedule created by end user

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Posted on by sotomo

Hi, I'm new to PowerApps, creating an app that allows users to schedule their own job functions. An email reminder should be sent to each user to remind them when their job functions are to occur. Initially we thought of using Flow, but I'm not sure how to trigger an email.

I'm saving information regarding the schedule in a database with fields such as time, day(s) of the week, and other recurrence information. I just can't think of a way to get Flow to integrate with the users' scheduling data.

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rmmcgr 58 on at

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Is Flow running the whole thing, or just being used for sending the emails?

If just for the email part, then as part of your job functions triggering, could you write a row to another table that would act as a message queue?

If you are using SQL server, Flow has a trigger that can run when an item is added to a table. You could use that to kick of sending the email.

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-triggers-in-the-sql-connector/

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sotomo 20 on at

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The intention was to have Flow just send the emails. I had considered your solution, but the problem is, it only works with Azure (which we aren't using) and "It does not work for on-premises SQL Server". I confirmed that with testing. Thanks for putting effort into it. That was the closest solution I could find too, but doesn't quite solve the problem. We might need to use a tool outside of PowerApps.

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v-xida-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @sotomo,

Do you want to send an email to the users using Microsoft Flow?

When you want to send an reminder email to the user? Could you please share a bit more about the SQL table which stores the recurrence information?

I assume that there is a date (or date time) column within your SQL table to store the time when the user's job functions occur, and have a column to store the email address of the user. I think Microsoft Flow could achieve your needs.

I have made a test on my side, please take a try with the following workaround:

Within Condition box, click "Edit in advanced mode", type the following formula:

@equals(formatDateTime(items('Apply_to_each')?['OccurTime'], 'MM/dd/yyyy'), utcNow('MM/dd/yyyy'))

Note: The OccurTime is a Date type column in my SQL table. The ExecutorEmail is a column in my SQL table, which is used to store the email address of the user. In addition, I use On-Premises SQL table to store the users' recurrence information. The flow would be fired every day, then check if someone's job functions occur today.

The flow works successfully as below:

More details about WDL expression in Microsoft Flow, please check the following article:

WDL expression in flow actions

Best regards,

Kris

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sotomo 20 on at

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Sorry for the delay! I got pulled onto another project, and thanks for your detailed instructions. Looking at it quickly, it seems to be on a one day polling schedule, whereas we would want the notifications to be more real time (within 15 minutes or so). I'll look at the recurrence options and post back. Thanks!

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sotomo 20 on at

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Hi @v-xida-msft,

Is Flow inside PowerApps different from Flow outside PowerApps? When I select Flow from within PowerApps, it seems like the available options are limitted compared to the full version of Flow. Could you explain the difference?

Thanks for the above solution. It seems to work, but I'm trying to figure out if we need to purchase Flow on top of PowerApps.

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