Extract Name from Email body and change words position

[Ali13]

Hi Community,

I'm building a flow to extract name of the email body as following: 

Group/Team/Site Owner: Max Tom

My goal is to get the output in this format: Tom, Max

Thanks!

[nitishsh91]

Hi @Ali13 

You can use the "Extract string" function to get the text after the "Group/Team/Site Owner: " phrase and store it in a variable.

Use a "Compose" action to split the name variable into first name and last name. You can use the "split()" function to divide the name variable into an array of substrings based on the space character.

Use "Compose" action to format the name in the desired format. You can use the "join()" function to concatenate the last name and first name.

[grantjenkins]

A few questions:

1. Is there other content in the body of the email besides the line of text you provided?
2. What happens if a user puts a single name such as Bob, already puts it into the format Tom, Max, or has more than two parts to their name such as Anne Marie Jones?
3. How does the email get generated - it is a result of another process such as someone filling out a form?

[VictorIvanidze]

Hi @Ali13, search here for "parse email body". 

Hi @nitishsh91, what is  the "Extract string" function you've mentioned?

[nitishsh91]

@VictorIvanidze  It would be substring, I meant function to extract string, not explicitly Extract string function..my bad should have been more explicit.

[Ali13]

Hi @grantjenkins 

1. Is there other content in the body of the email besides the line of text you provided?
1. Yes, this is only part of email body
2. What happens if a user puts a single name such as Bob, already puts it into the format Tom, Max, or has more than two parts to their name such as Anne Marie Jones?
1. It’s automated email so the names are always written in format first name, last name, but as you mentioned if the name contains more than two parts it should be identified in format Last name, first name part 1 + part 2. I don’t think there is another way to identify which parts are first name or last name.
3. How does the email get generated - it is a result of another process such as someone filling out a form? Yes exactly, result of form.

[grantjenkins]

There may be slightly easier ways to do this, but hopefully this will get what you're looking for.

Below are a couple of example emails that I used for testing the flow. Note that one of them has a name with two parts, and the other with three parts.

Below is the full flow. I'll go into each of the actions.

When a new email arrives triggers when we get a new email.

Html to text strips out any HTML elements from the body of the email.

Filter array splits the data by new line giving us an array of lines in the email. It then filters items that start with "Group/Team/Site Owner:". The expressions used are:

split(outputs('Html_to_text')?['body'], decodeUriComponent('%0A'))

trim(item())

Name is a Compose that extracts out the name only. The expression used is below. If we work inside-out, we get the first item from the Filter array, trim any leading/trailing spaces, split by colon, then further trim any leading/trailing spaces. This will give us just the name.

trim(last(split(trim(first(body('Filter_array'))), ':')))

Name Formatted is another Compose that uses the output from Name and uses the concat expression to join the first and last name in the format required. It uses the following expression.

concat(trim(slice(outputs('Name'), lastIndexOf(outputs('Name'), ' '))), ', ', trim(slice(outputs('Name'), 0, lastIndexOf(outputs('Name'), ' '))))

If we run the flow with the two example emails, we would get the output below.

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[Ali13]

Hi @grantjenkins , 
thanks for the detailed answer. I followed your steps, but I get an error in the 2nd step>

Error>

[grantjenkins]

In your Filter array, trim(item()) needs to be added as an expression. At the moment, you've just typed it out as text.

[Ali13]

Thank you for this hint, it worked now, but still not the same results.

>>

[grantjenkins]

Are you able to show the output of your Html to text?

[Ali13]

Unfortunately no, but here is an example 
Html to text output>

Filter Array output:

[grantjenkins]

Ah - based on your original post, it looked like the name was on the same line as the header.

Group/Team/Site Owner: Max Tom

My goal is to get the output in this format: Tom, Max

If each value is on a new line (following the header for that value), we would need a slightly different approach. I'll get something for you that should work well.

[Ali13]

Thanks for your quick response, yes in the original email the name is on the same line as the header, but there is a space in between. But after applying Html to text the name appears in separate line. As mentioned the goal is to get the name apart from its length in the format > Last name, First name
Note: The name is dynamic, so it changes in new every email. Thanks again!