Send an email when sharepoint file is updated

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone!

I am new to Power Automate...
I am trying to create a flow when a sharepoint file is updated in that particular day, the flow is triggered and will send a customized email to users notifying them that the file has been changed today..

So far the flows have run successfully, however, it takes about an hour after the stipulated time to send the email out...

Also, if the file has not been changed, the flow will continue running and finish once the file has been changed, e.g. if I made changes only on Wednesday, the flow that was ran on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will all send an email to users. Users will receive 3 emails instead of 1..

I have attached my flow as below, I would also like to do the same but on a weekly basis.

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

[Jay-Encodian]

Hey @Anonymous 

Welcome to the community 🙂

Can you add some screen shots of the configuration of your Flow please, some screen shots of the run history showing the result of an executed Flow would also be helpful

Thanks J

[Gristy]

you didnt attach anything.

make a column of time number lets call it SendEmail - default value 1

Create a flow with trigger when created or modified - add a action update file properties and set SendEmail = 1.

Run a scheduled flow daily that does a Get Files (properties only) where SendEmail eq 1.

For each item send your email, and also update SendEmail to 0 or some other number other than 1

[Anonymous]

@Jay-Encodian @Gristy Here are the screenshots, not sure why it did not attach previously..

Thank you in advance for all your help..

[Jay-Encodian]

Hey @Anonymous 

Can I check your requirements please as there a few ways to do this...

Are you trying to simply send a customised email to a user when a file has changed in SharePoint? i.e. what happens if the same file is changed twice on the same day?

Are you trying to send a summary email once a day for a file which has been changed?

Thanks Jay

[Anonymous]

Hi @Jay-Encodian 

Sorry I did not specify this.. 
I am trying to send a summary email once a day for a file that has been changed.
For example, if the file was changed once in the morning and once in the afternoon, at the end of the day I would like the flow to only send one email to users informing them that the file has been changed today.

Thank you for your help 🙂

[v-bacao-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Perhaps you might consider checking whether the specified file has been changed the previous day. If changed, send a message.

I hope that helps.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi @v-bacao-msft,

That's a great suggestion!
I tried the following, however, I am not sure on some things on the flow, please let me clarify.

For recurrence, I do not need to put a time zone. Does that mean that regardless of timezone it will run at 8am?
e.g. if I am in Singapore, it will run at 8am, while my user is in Portugal, it will run at their 8am?

Next part is the get files (properties only) and I need to select the library name which only appears Documents.

However, In documents I have a few folders which I do not want to check if it is edited.
For example, in my sharepoint there are a few folders, and in this particular folder (Material Status Listing)
I have a few files (for now there is only one, but in the future as each season pass, there will be more files added), and I only want to look if that particular file has been changed, how do I include that in Library Name?

Next, I tried to replicate the flow after apply to each, however I am unable to find the following conditions that you have in your screenshot, could it be there is something wrong in my step?

Thank you so much for your time in solving this 🙂

[Jay-Encodian · Accepted solution]

hey @Anonymous @v-bacao-msft 

Whilst you can filter the results post returning the files from SharePoint... IMHO you should really query for a smaller result and then process the results.

For example this would pickup all files updated since the start of the current day:

The filter query expression is: startOfDay(utcNow(),'yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ')

Next step: Add a 'Send email Notification' action

Next step: Configure the action, upon selecting dynamic data from the 'Get Files' action the 'Apply to Each' loop will be automatically added by Power Automate

All Done 🙂 - though obviously you'd want a different trigger action

I just changed two files in a library with 3000 files contained and both we're picked up:

HTH

Jay

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[Anonymous]

Hi @Jay-Encodian 
Thank you for the suggestion on adding the filter query expression to pick up files that are in the Sharepoint.

What if I only want to check one particular file in library?
For Example in my Sharepoint Library I have 5 folders but I would only want to check if files are changed in Material Status Listing.
How do I go about filtering the flow to run only this folder (Material Status Listing)?

Thank you so much for your help on this!!

[Jay-Encodian]

Hi @Anonymous 

If you were only checking a single file you would use the 'Get File Properties' action or similar to get a single file as opposed to using 'Get Files' which returns a collection.

If you want to get the files from a particular folder add a 'Filter Array' action as follows:

HTH

Jay

[Anonymous]

Hi @Jay-Encodian 

Thank you for helping me, but I have ran into an error after including the filter Query.

Could it be a problem in my steps?
I will list down my steps as below, could you help me to take a look and pinpoint out any errors on my part that I should correct it before running the flow.

1. Recurrence: I included this as per suggested by @v-bacao-msft 

However, I am not sure if I do not put a time zone, does that mean that regardless of timezone it will run at 8am?

e.g. if I am in Singapore, it will run at 8am (SG Time) while my user is in Portugal, it will run at 8am (PTG time)?

2. Get Files (properties only) - I have added Filter Query as per your reply

3. I have added a filter array to filter out the folder that I would like to check

4. apply to each value and send an email notification (v3)

Before I added the filter query in stage 2 and make a condition instead in stage 4 as mentioned by @v-bacao-msft  the flow was able to run. However when I changed the file, the flow still ran through no instead of yes condition, so email notification was never sent.

When I add the filter query in stage 2 and remove condition in stage 4, the flow is stuck at stage 2 with the error as above.

Please let me know if which part should I change or add in instead.

Thank you for your help once again!

[Jay-Encodian]

Hey @Anonymous 

Can you copy and paste your filter query into this thread please?

It should be similar to: Modified gt '@{ startOfDay(utcNow(),'yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ')}'

Also to add you should remove the red surrounded elements of your folder path in the filter array action:

Thanks J

[v-bacao-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

First, you have less of the last " ' "configured in Filter Query.

In addition, when you configure Apply to each, you should use the Body output by the Filter array. If you also use the content output by Get items, then configuring the Filter array is meaningless.

Going back to the method I provided earlier, if you only want to check the specified folder, you can directly add an additional filter in Condition to see if the Folder Path is the one that is expected.

Hope that makes sense.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi @Jay-Encodian 

I have managed to run the file and the flow works!
However, I have another problem... as the file is in sharepoint the autosave is always on.
This means that if users just open the file and not do any changes to the file, it will also be showed as changes.

Any way to work around this?
Happy New Year!!

[Jay-Encodian]

Hey @Anonymous 
Good news 🙂 - if you could please mark the post which helped you solve the issue as a solution that’d be great (helps others find solutions to similar problems)

ref autosave; assuming that disabling the Office client isn’t an option, have you tried configuring the SharePoint library to require checkout? https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/set-up-a-library-to-require-check-out-of-files-0c73792b-f727-4e19-a1f9-3173899e695b
HTH

Jay