Change date format received from MS Forms in MS Flow for use in email

[PeggyLang]

I have an approval 'Leave Request' flow.  It is triggered when a response has been received from an MS Form.  
It runs successfully and produces the desired outcomes, however . . . 
the email sent out via MS Flow upon approval contains the following;
'leave requested for yyyy-mm-dd to yyyy-mm-dd has been approved.'
I would prefer my email to read;
'leave requested for MMM dd yyyy to MMM dd yyyy has been approved.'  i.e., Nov 12 2020 instead of 2020-11-12
I'm guessing I need to initialize variable to accomplish this, however, I'm not sure where in the steps of the flow to add this, nor the syntax for it.

Any help GREATLY appreciated.

[Paulie78]

You've sort of answered it yourself really 😄. An expression like this will do what you want:

formatDateTime(outputs('Date'), 'MMM dd yyyy')

Just replace outputs('Date') with whatever your date value is.

[PeggyLang]

@Paulie78 where in my flow do I insert that experssion.  I've 'tinkered' with it, but have not yet been successful.

[Paulie78 · Accepted solution]

Whereever it is you are applying the date field. So in your case, in your "send an email" action. I guess in the body of your email you are inserting dynamic content. You simply delete that dynamic content and put in the expression instead. 

Within the expression delete the bit I put outputs('Date'), leave your cursor placed in the expression and go back to your dynamic content and select the date field you want to reformat and it will go into your expression. 

No need to add another variable etc, because it is only being used once. If it does not make sense, I will try to explain it another way.

[PeggyLang]

@Paulie78 , so clearly I need my hand to be held . . . 😣
I didn't remove the field that were working just yet, I just added what I interpretted the replacement to be;

Here is the error message that was returned;

[Paulie78]

It's because you have picked all of the response details from the form (which is an object of values) instead of just the date return from the form response. So you almost have it correct, you just picked the incorrect dynamic data.

[PeggyLang]

FIGURED IT OUT !!!!

🎉💃👏


THANKS SO MUCH !!!!

[Paulie78]

Well done, better click that accept solution button then!  😉

If I answered your question Accept it as a solution ✔️ 

If I helped you out, please give me some Kudos 👍

Thanks 😙

[Anonymous]

Hi - I think I have got this wrong somehow; the dynamic field I am trying to convert date on is 'Firstdateofleave'??

formatDateTimetrigger((['Firstdateofleave']), 'dd MMM yyyy')

[Anonymous]

Hi - I think I have got this wrong somehow; the dynamic field I am trying to convert date on is 'Firstdateofleave'??

formatDateTimetrigger((['Firstdateofleave']), 'dd MMM yyyy')

[Anonymous]

sorted....

formatDateTime(triggerBody()?['Firstdateofleave'],'dd MM yyyy')

[nelzy]

Howdy! 

Can you tell me what I am doing wrong! 

I keep getting this error?

[Joeyvs]

Hi Nelzy,

I notice two things:

1. Your expression in the error message seems to be incorrect. The screenshot of the error shows: formateDateTime. It is correct in your first screenshot so I would recommand to restart this expression.

2. Please be aware of your datatime formats. When you use 'DD/MM/YYYY' you will get something similair to this:

There are several standard formats, you can use. For european notation 'dd/MM/yyyy' is often used. If you want to see other notations please take a look at the following link. 

Another tip: as an example you can always use this expression: 

formatDateTime(utcNow(),'dd/MM/yyyy')

[Yvette_26]

@Paulie78 Hi Paulie, I am trying to do the same thing as @PeggyLang but I can't see what coding was input to reflect the date format change. Below is an illustration of what I am putting which is 

formatDateTime(outputs('Get_response_details')?['MMM dd yyyy'])

but this doesn't change anything, I am not sure what I am doing wrong.