Microsoft Forms Data in readable format in an email

[LM123]

Hi, I have developed a flow which pulls the answers from a questionnaire I built in Microsoft Forms.  When the answers are submitted (via an email) some of the multi choice responses (only some) are being returned in square brackets and inverted commas ie  [“Answer 1”, “Answer 2”]  and other responses which are also multiple choice do not have square brackets or inverted commas.   I understand it has something to do with JSON but I have not been able to find a solution that works in my flow.  Is there someone who can assist?

This is an example:

Duration of Function: 1 hour
Select Meeting Room:["Meeting Room 5 (capacity 10)"]

[abm]

Hi @LM123 

Could you post a sample screenshot of your multi choice question. Is that two different questions (multiple choice) where you get different type of responses.

[LM123]

Hi @abm,

Please see attached screen shots:

1. Screen Shots titled "Catering Requirement" and "Specify Food" are both multiple choice questions in my form;

2. Screen Shot titled "Email Response" is how the response appears in an email and you can see two different formats although both multiple choice.

I have also set out below my current flow

Thanks for your help.

[grantjenkins]

You can extract out each of the values from your multi-select choice fields, and join them with whatever you require (comma, semi-colon, <br>, etc.) depending on your requirements.

See example below that converts the array of values to JSON, then joins the values with a comma. Note that you would just need to pass in the appropriate field into the expression.

You would put your actual field in place of outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r1bcf90eb37ec4a57944c99d78840e859']

//Separated with commas
join(json(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r1bcf90eb37ec4a57944c99d78840e859']), ', ')

//Separated with <br> tags so show on new line in your email
join(json(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r1bcf90eb37ec4a57944c99d78840e859']), '<br>')

Example output would be:

Result of the join expression:

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[LM123]

@Anonymous thanks for this but how will it work when I have 12 questions and they are all multiple choice.  How do I separate each question in "Get Response Details"?

[grantjenkins]

You can add the expressions directly into the body of your email. In the example below, my form has two multiple choice fields: Countries and Colors.

The expressions used in the email are:

//Each expression uses the appropriate field

//Countries
join(json(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r1bcf90eb37ec4a57944c99d78840e859']), ', ')

//Colors
join(json(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r9257354d5cd24a8983740657db4b208f']), ', ')

Email output in this instance would be:

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[LM123]

Thanks @grantjenkins but I am not a tech person so I do not understand where you are getting the below codes from as they both have different numbers (which makes sense as one relates to countries and other to colours) but I am missing a step how you link this formula to the question in the form.  Is there some step I have to do beforehand to reference json formula you specified to the specific question?

join(json(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r1bcf90eb37ec4a57944c99d78840e859']), ', ')

join(json(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r9257354d5cd24a8983740657db4b208f']), ', ')

[LM123]

Hi @abm,

See the attached screenshots.  Two different multi choice questions which result in two different type of format responses.  I have also attached a sample of how those responses are received (doc titled "Email response" in the attachments). Thanks

[abm · Accepted solution]

Hi   

This is what we discussed.

Find the run history and get the question Id's. Once you find the question Id then use the expression 

join(json(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/{questionid}']), ', ')

For the date format convert to dd-MM-yyyy format use

formatDateTime(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/{questionid}'],'dd-MM-yyyy')

Hope the session was useful.

Thanks

[LM123]

@abm thank you so much.  Your solution and explanation was so easy to follow.  Thank you so much for your time and guiding me through.  I finally have a flow that works and outputs the right data - cannot thank you enough!

[grantjenkins]

@LM123 Sorry for not getting back to you earlier - was caught up all weekend and yesterday.

Another option instead of copying/pasting the ids of the fields is to insert the dynamic properties directly into the expression. You'll find yourself doing this a lot within Power Automate. See quick video showing how I added my Form fields into the expression (I didn't copy and paste the ids). Hopefully this will be useful for further flows that you build.

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