Flow To Create Task To Follow Up On A Sent Message, Then Delete Task If Response Received

[GurBAL]

I would like to build a flow that will create a task reminding me to follow up on an email that I have sent if the recipient has not responded within x days.  I only want this flow to run against selected sent mail, not all sent mail. 

Here's how I envision it working.  I would select a sent message or a message that is being composed to trigger the flow.  The MSFT gods would create a task titled “Follow up with <recipient> re email “ <subject>”.  The task would have an immediate start date, a due date x days in the future, and a reminder on the due date at the same time the task was created.  The system would then monitor my inbox, looking for an email with the same <recipient> and <subject> (unless there is a better way to track my outbound message).  If no response is received by the deadline, the previously-created task would trigger.  If a response is received, the system should record a note in the task like “Response received - task automatically deleted” and delete the task (or mark it complete if that is easier).  That is, unless the task had already been completed or deleted, in which case no change would be made.

My initial thought was that I could achieve this by assigning a specific Category to the sent mail that I wanted to watch, but flow/automate doesn’t seem to be able to trigger based on Categories.  I am at a loss as to how else to get started on this (I am a Flow newbie).  Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

[efialttes]

Hi!
As far as I know, categories based triggers are currently not yet supported in Power Automate Outlook connector 😣
But... I can thnk of three different workarounds:
1.- Use 'When an email is flagged' trigger monitoring a specific folder you create for this purpose: move manually your target outboud emails to that specific folder, flag them... your flow will be executed. One you finish processing, you can let your Power Automate flow set them as 'Completed'
2.- use 'When a new email arrives' selecting 'Sent items' as your folder to monitor, and adding also a specific pattern to monitor in the Subject. So if you need a reminder for an email you are about to send, you just add the pattern in its subject

3.- combine both approaches

Hope this helps

[v-litu-msft]

Hi @GurBAL,

You could create a SharePoint list to store these sent Emails information, including Sender, Recipient, Subject, Date, Keywords.

If so, you should create two Flow, one is when an email sent, store email information into SharePoint.

The other is when an email arrived and the Subject contains "RE:", it means the email is a reply, then use Get items action to filter out the original email and mark it.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[GurBAL]

Thank you both for your suggestions, @efialttes and @v-litu-msft.  They were very helpful for me to start thinking about how to do this.  Seems like the best approach for me would be to place a copy of the sent message that I wanted to monitor into a special folder, and then have the flow monitor that folder.  If it finds a new email in the folder, the flow can create the task to follow-up.  But I am still not clear on how I can have the flow watch the inbox for a reply to each email, and if received, delete/complete the matching task (unless previously completed).  Do you have any guidance for me on how to do that?

[efialttes]

Hi!
I am following @v-litu-msft suggestion in one of my Power Automateprojects, by adding a pattern on my Subjects when I want to archive certain emails in Sharepoint
My pattern is quite simple: [ProjectName | REF: yyyymmddhhmmssfff]
The REF helps me to dentify different topics per project, I also store it in Sharepoint
So the additional flow that is listening for responses has a conditional trigger, it searches for the pattern '| REF:' then archives the reply email. If you follow this approach you can do anything else (close the task or whatever you have in mind)
Hope this helps

[GurBAL]

Thank you for that suggestion @efialttes, but it isn't workable to add a code/hash to the subject of the emails for 2 reasons.  First, I want to be able to flag emails for follow-up after they have been sent.  Second, these are generally not mass-market or support-type emails.  Having what looks like a case number in the subject line of the email would set the wrong tone for what is meant to be a more personal communication.

Any other ideas?

[efialttes · Accepted solution]

@GurBAL 

Understood your concerns. I would try with 'ConversationId' instead

So, if all these suggestions fit your requirements, my humble suggestion is:

1.-Mark this topic as "Solved" by clicking "Accept as a solution". This way other community members facing this same problem in the future have the chance to find a solution faster. Please note you can pick more than one reply as Solution, from more than one Community Member!

2.- Try implementing the suggested scenario, and open a new thread whenever you find an issue, following the policy: 'One Question, one post'. the reason is many SuperUsers pay more attention to unanswered topics, and this one already have too many. Let's hope somebody else can point us to the right direction

3.- (OPTIONAL) Click on 'Thumbs up' on each answer from this thread you found inspiring (or even on all of them 😉).

Even though this 3rd step is OPTIONAL, please remember it is the cheapest, easiest way to say thanks to somebody that simply tried to help. And just between you and me, everytime an inspiring answer receive a kudo, an ewok escapes from The Emperor menace  😉

Thanx for your contribution to keep this community great!

[GurBAL]

I will follow that advice @efialttes.  Thanks for the help.