Auto reply to last message in teams

[Iam_Daniel]

Hello

I want to create flow that automatically reply to a new message in microsoft teams if it contains certain phrase. In screenhot below I've made flow that reply to every message containing that phrase, is it possible to get the newest message from messages array or just content, id, owner of message that triggered flow?

Thanks in advance.

[DeepakS · Accepted solution]

Hi @Iam_Daniel ,

If you are looking to send an auto reply to a new message you don't need to use 'Get Message' action. "When a new channel message is added" trigger is already provides you all the details about the message.

Try this:

Regards,

Deepak S

[Anonymous]

What I am experiencing is a bit different. I am triggering the 'on/off' state of my 'auto-reply from Flow' flow. When it enters into an 'on' state, after being off for several hours, the flow sees each message-id as a 'new message' and replies to every message on that list. What I am trying to do, is make sure that once the flow 'on' state is changed, that it doesn't reply to anything that was submitted prior. 

[Amitrea1]

Hi, 

I had the same issue for a teams channel. 

If you have not solved it yet, this one should work:

In the initialize variable put this text:

int(formatDateTime(convertFromUtc(triggerOutputs()?['body/createdDateTime'], 'W. Europe Standard Time'), 'HHmm')) with the bold are where you put the name of your timezone. 

In the condition set the variable to be compared in an OR condition and have it be greater than your closing time, without separation ex. 700 or 1900, and less than your opening time in same format. 

Use the trigger when a new message is added to a channel and that should do it. Also since it filters the times you can always leave it on, been using it for 1 month now without issues. 

Just a warning, it scans for new messages every 3 minutes so sometimes there is a small delay in the reply but don't worry even if it does not respond instantly it will reply to all messages in the next scan, if the conditions are met of course. 

I hope this helps you and if you need further help let me know. 

Best regards

A. Mitrea

[Anonymous]

Thank you @Amitrea1 . I had used this design method originally,  but started thinking in terms of 'readability' and overall efficient use of cloud-services. To keep a flow like this 'on' at all times, such that every teams channel message must get checked, seemed like a poor design choice for our application. 

The second iteration was designed to separate the 'off-hour' checks and only turn on the auto-reply flow when it was needed. That was when I saw all channel messages being replied to, once the flow turned on. It saw all messages since its last 'on' state, as being new channel messages. I admit that I can over-complicate matters, but I also am trying to learn as much power-automate as I can, so I decided to use a third design method. 

I am now using three separate flows: 

1. RECURRENCE: manages all 'off-hours' variables and then checks to see if any of those conditions are 'true', and triggers the 'on/off' state of the other flows. 

2. SHAREPOINT LIST: this flow adds the unique message ID (UID) of every new channel message throughout our 'on-hours' and stores them in a Sharepoint list. 

3. AFTER-HOURS AUTO REPLY: this flow checks the UID of all messages since the prior 'on' state and compares them against those in the Sharepoint list. If there is a match, it adds this UID to an array variable. If that array's length is not equal to 0, it means that that specific channel message was already sent and does not need to be replied to by the bot. The recurrence flow then deletes all UID's at the start of the next business day, and the process starts fresh again.