Create an Email Response that Updates List with No Response Timer

[MStark17]

I'm new to Power Automate and what I'm trying to do is create a flow that sends an email to a given email list with a yes or no response. Their response will update a SharePoint list with their names (I can only get it to display email address properly). If they don't respond in X amount of time it will auto fill the list with their names and a no entry.

I've attached what I have so far and I have a general idea of what the process should be but no clue how to do it. 

Any help would be appreciated!

[AnthonyAmador · Accepted solution]

Hi @MStark17 

Based in what you want to achieve I create one flow that may can help you with this. 

I first created the column in SharePoint using the "choice" option, it looks like this.

This is what my flow looks like. 

The first thing is to configure the "send email with options" timeout. I set the timeout to 2 minutes, for that you need to click the settings options in the action and configure it. 

You have to select the duration in ISO 8601 format, in this link you can find more information about this 

ISO 8601 duration format (digi.com)

Basically, I created two branches, one for when the user don't respond and one for when the user respond yes or no.

This is the first, when the user don't respond, this one only runs when the "send an email with options" action has timed out, you can configure that in the action  settings/configure run after. The action "terminate" is to show your flow as successful in the runs bar, otherwise the flow will be successful but is going to show as failed because the action "send an email with options" has timed out.

The action "get user profile" helps you to find the name of the user with the email. 

Here is more information about this action. 

Office 365 Users - Connectors | Microsoft Docs

This is inside the other branch 

I hope this helps you. 

Best Regards

If my solution helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[MStark17]

Thanks, I've got it setup; however, I run into an issue where after the email times out. The next step of getting a user profile fails because the timed out email becomes set as null. Is there a way to set a list like I have below where there's an email list the flow can rely on like a variable string?

[AnthonyAmador]

You are right, when I tested that part I did it manually, my bad. 

Yes, I recommend that you use a SharePoint list with all the emails you need to send the request, that way you can automate the flow more and don't need to enter each email manually and run the flow for each email, it should look like this.

That way you can also solve the problem with the action "get user profile" when there is no response from the user using the email directly from the SharePoint list . 

Best Regards. 

 If my solution helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[MStark17]

Ran into a pretty important problem while working on it again. After adding multiple people to the SharePoint list I found out that the flow runs sequentially. So it waits for the first person on the list to respond before it sends out email #2, then it waits to send to #3 and so on and so forth. I need it to send out a mass email to everyone on my list at the same time. How can I change it to that? Thanks 

[AnthonyAmador]

Hi @MStark17 

Sorry to hear that this solution does not work as you would like, the problem here is that you are using the action "Send email with options" and you have to wait for the response to save it, it seems like there is not work around using this action. 

I recommend that you explore the Approvals connector, I think it might be better for you. 

Approvals - Connectors | Microsoft Docs

Hope this helps. 

Cheers.