Getting User profile from their answer in a Teams Form to start approval process

[kristid]

I have created a flow that starts with the submission of a teams form.  We manage apartment communities and the manager must request changes for the property for specials, lease terms, new unit type changes, etc..  The form request first goes to the Regional Supervisor (I've create a two step approval process).  The Manager will choose their supervisor's name from a question in the form.  How do I use their answer to the question in the form to send the approval to that Supervisor?  Do I use get user profile step?  If so, where and how?

[mrdevops]

To use the answer from the Teams form to determine the appropriate Regional Supervisor and route the approval request to that specific supervisor, you definitely should be able to use the "Get user profile" action.

1. Trigger:

Start with the trigger that begins when a Teams form is submitted.

2. Initialize Variables:

Create a variable to store the selected supervisor's name from the form response.

3. Parse Form Response:

Use the "Parse JSON" action to parse the form response. This step is necessary to extract the supervisor's name from the form submission.

4. Set Variable:

Set the variable created earlier with the supervisor's name from the parsed JSON.

5. Get User Profile:

Add a "Get user profile" action to retrieve the profile information of the selected supervisor. You can use the variable from step 4 as the email or username to fetch the supervisor's profile.

6. Start Approval Process:

After retrieving the supervisor's profile, initiate the approval process. You can use the "Start an approval" action and specify the supervisor's email address or other relevant information as the approver.

I will say, if you have any control over the questions on the form, it might be easier to have the person filling it out put in their supervisor's email for that question - it might make less work for you trying to get that value into a variable for this process (unless you've specified supervisors in a choice field - then disregard this last bit).

Thank you.

[kristid]

Excellent!  Thank you again mrdevops.  I will try this over the weekend and report back.  

[mrdevops]

No problem. Good luck - let me know how it goes.

[kristid]

Mrdevops,

What will the type of the initialize variable be...array, string, boolean, etc?  And, will the value be the dynamic content from that question on the form (Who is your Regional Supervisor)?  Will the value be the same thing on the set variable step?  

Thank you for any guidance!

[mrdevops]

The supervisor's name (or email, if you choose to go that route based on the form's response) will be a singular piece of text data, so you'll want to use 'string'.

Yes, the value for this variable will be the dynamic content that comes from the specific question on the form where the respondent indicates their Regional Supervisor. When you set up the variable initialization in your flow, you would choose the dynamic content related to the question (e.g., "Who is your Regional Supervisor?") from the form's responses. This ensures that the variable holds the exact name or identifier chosen by the respondent.

When you reach the "Set variable" step in your flow, you would use the same dynamic content to set the variable's value. Essentially, the "Initialize variable" step declares the variable and its type, while the "Set variable" step assigns its value based on the form submission. If you've already extracted the necessary information (the supervisor's name) from the form response and stored it in the variable, you may not need to set the variable again unless there's a transformation or further extraction needed.

tl;dr
Initialize Variable Type: String, for holding the supervisor's name or email.
Value at Initialization and Setting: Use the dynamic content from the form response related to the Regional Supervisor question for both initializing and setting the variable.

Note that, if you're using supervisor's email for the answer to that question, you can use the dynamic field value from the form response directly and skip the initialize/set variable steps. It's sometimes easier that way, if you can get away with it.

I hope that makes sense, feel free to reply with any further clarifying questions though.

[kristid]

Thank you a million!  The only error I'm getting is the Get user profile step.  I put in the dynamic content question but should I be choosing the string from the list that is tied to that question or something else?  

[mrdevops]

Hello. It looks like you're in the home stretch.

What you use for the 'get user profile' will depend on whether your "Who is your Regional Supervisor?" question is giving you something you can use or not. In the flow run you linked, can you run it again and show the contents of your init/set variable? Blur identifying info of course - alternately, just let me know if it's an email address or a name and we should be able to figure it out.

[kristid]

Thank you again for your help!  I put my name as one of the choices in the teams form as a supervisor so I could test the approval flow.

[mrdevops · Accepted solution]

No problem. The 'get users' connector is wanting UPN for input, so you'll need to go a slightly different route. Can you try using the 'search for users v2' instead? For the search value, you'll use your 'supervisor' variable.

[mrdevops]

I should note, the 'search for users v2' will output more info than you need, you'll need to look for the 'Email' option in Dynamic Content when you need to use the supervisor's email later in your flow.

from 'search for users v2'

[kristid]

My hero!  This worked!  Thank you so much!  

[mrdevops]

Awesome, glad to hear it.

Thank you.

[kristid]

@mrdevops  I had a weird issue pop up that I just realized.  For my approval, I have the condition that is set to outcome is equal to approve.  It has worked in all my prior tests but now it is performing the if no side of the condition even thought that wasn't the approval decision.  Do you know what would cause this and how to fix it?

[kristid]

**even though, not event thought

[kristid]

I don't know if this changes anything but it did update that step to an apply to each, whereas before it didn't have that part.

[mrdevops]

What is your input for that condition that is giving 'false' in your run, right before posting to teams?

[kristid]

This is what it was but I noticed that if I 'x' that out and click on dynamic content in that cell, it no longer has outcome as an option.  Do I need to recreate the condition now?

[mrdevops]

I would first rule out the issue just being a bug by saving/exiting the designer and going back into edit. Then see if the dynamic content loads in and remove/replace it.

[kristid]

Thank you, as always!  It seems to be working now.  I appreciate your help so much!