Power Virtual Agents - Append to array

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I've built a Power Virtual Agent that is intended to tell the user where their nearest recycling centre is.

I can pass the a string containing the user postcode from Power Virtual Agents to a Power Automate solution. The solution creates an array of the addresses of the recycling centres then, via apply to each uses bing mapping to get the distance between two waypoints. The solution should then append the distance to the array, check for the smallest  distance and pass that info, plus address back to power virtual agents

Waypoint A = PVA user postcode and waypoint B is recycling centre postcode.

What i cant seem to work out is how to append the distance back to the array and check for the smallest . I tried to initialise the variable outside of the apply to each and then hoped that I could append to that - but when i append it just adds the distance in a single block.

I cant use a sharepoint list or other external data source -  would be really grateful for any advice on this 

many thanks

 Part 1Part 2

many thanks

[efialttes]

Hi!
"The solution creates an array of the addresses of the recycling centres"
In your current flow design, what's the array elements data type? Are they objects, strings?
I guess they are objects with at least two attributes: address (string) and distance (float), right?
The more context info we get, the faster you will get valuable feedback
Thanx!

[Anonymous]

@efialttes hi , they are just strings in create array stage

this is the statement ( there are 26 sites in this stage, im only showing a small section below )

createArray(createArray('Portsmouth HWRC','Paulsgrove Portway','PO6 4UD'),createArray('Aldershot HWRC','Ivy Road','GU12 4TX'))

in the initialise variable i just use the output of this with type array, should i be using object instead?

many thanks

[efialttes · Accepted solution]

Hi!

Let's assume inside your Apply to Each you store the distance calculated in each iteration inside a variable called 'currentIterationDistance' of type float, that will represent the distance in miles, or whatever metric you need

Now some more questions...

Is your goal to have an array of arrays, being each of its elements as the one in the following example

['Portsmouth HWRC','Paulsgrove Portway','PO6 4UD','1.6'] 

Or... is it OK to have a single element as result- the closest one-?

If you can afford a free format and you just need a single element , I would suggest to:

-Initialize variable, let's call it myOutputSite, type object, value

json('{}')

-Initialize variable, let's call it closestDistance, type float, value 10000.00 (in miles, or whatever metric you need)

Then inside your Apply to Each, I would add a Condition to evaluate if distance calculated in current iteration is less than the one stored in variable closestDistance, now leave false branch empty, and on the  true branch:

-set variable, name closetsDistance, assign as its value the following expression

variables('currentIterationDistance')

-set variable, name myOutputSite, assign as its value the following expression

setProperty(setProperty(json('{}'),'Address',item()),'distance',variables('currentIterationDistance'))

But... if you need as output the array with all Sites, and the calculated instance for all of them, you can add also the following:

-add before the 'Apply to Each' an Initialize variable action block, name myOutputSitesArray, value

[]

-add inside 'Apply to Each' just before but out of the suggested Condition, an 'Append to Array' action block, assign as its value the following expression

setProperty(setProperty(json('{}'),'Address',item()),'distance',variables('currentIterationDistance'))

Hope this helps

[Anonymous]

hi @efialttes 

that worked beautifully, thanks ( i need to do some formatting on the response ) - I'm going to write a post covering how it was done. I think it could help others who might want to do something similar. I'll be sure to credit/tag you