Sending an Email when an Open Shift is created.

[Geffen111]

Hi, some staff at my organisation cannot rely on push notifications to alert them to new open shifts created in the Shifts app within Teams. I'd like to be able to have an email generated and sent to all members of a scheduling group when a new open shift is created, or a list of available open shifts sent daily, though this is beyond my skill level with Power Automate. If anyone can set me on the right path I'd be very grateful. 

[Taylor_Becktold]

Hi @Geffen111! 

Welcome to the Power Automate community! I would recommend that you start by exploring the Power Automate Shifts connector documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/shifts/#triggers

From your requirements, it sounds like you want to use this trigger to kick-off your process: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/shifts/#when-a-shift-is-created,-updated-or-deleted

If I were you, I would start by: Creating a new flow, search for the trigger in the documentation above and build a simple Flow that ends in a 'terminate' control. Then, I would try creating an open shift to see if it successfully triggers your Flow. 

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[v-yujincui-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Geffen111,

Do you want to send an email to the members in your group when an Open Shift is created?

If you want to achieve like this, I am afraid that there is no out-of-box trigger to achieve this in Power Automate currently.

A similar trigger like “When a Shift is created, updated or deleted” could only assign a Shift to a specify member, you could check more details as below:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/shifts/#triggers

Fill out a schedule in Shifts (microsoft.com)

I have made a test for your reference. After the trigger is on, you can get the email address of all the members in the group and then send the contents of this Shift to them.

Result Screenshots:

Best Regards,

Charlie Choi

[Geffen111]

Hello and apologies for my tardy reply. Many thanks for your input, it's very much appreciated. I had looked at some of the documentation and had found a similar example to the one you have provided, though the key trigger I need to use is the creation of only an Open Shift, as I want to alert staff to the availability of an Open Shift via email (and not of creation or changes to other Shifts). As this trigger is not available I don't think I will be able to create the Flow. Thanks again. 

[Geffen111]

Hello and thank you for the input, it's very much appreciated. I am looking to send an email only when an Open Shift is Created, however it looks like the creation of an Open Shift can't be identified in a Flow independent from other Shifts. Thanks again for your reply.

[mwaxman1]

I've been contending with the exact same issue.  My workaround was to create a Sharepoint list for new Open Shifts, which serves as the creation point and cross reference for Open Shifts.  My team now creates new Open Shift by adding an item to the Sharepoint list.  I have a trigger setup to watch for new items on that list, and based on the inputs, I have an action that will create an Open Shift in the specified schedule/group.  I kind of like this setup actually because it allows my 'event scheduling team' to operate in Sharepoint exclusively, while the only thing that really happens in Shifts now is assignment to a worker.

Additionally, I store the OpenShiftID to the Sharepoint list too, and have a unique ID in the DisplayName field on the shift.  That way, when the shift is assigned, I can get the Shift that was just created, find the Sharepoint record that it matches to using the unique ID and GetItems on the Sharepoint list.  When the Shift is assigned, I append the ShiftID to that record in Sharepoint... if anything gets adjusted on the assigned shift, I use the 'When a Shift is Updated' trigger to push that back to Sharepoint.  Finally, if a Shift is ever deleted or unassigned (both events appear as deletes in Shifts API fyi), I then grab the OpenShift ID from the Sharepoint item and look for it in OpenShifts... if it exists again, that means that it was unassigned... if it doesn't exist, then it means the Shift was actually deleted.  This is important, as I didn't realize that the OpenShiftID actually persists even after the OpenShift creates the Shift.  The AssignedShift object actually carries the OpenShiftID, so when it gets unassigned, the OpenShift is recreated with the same OpenShiftID.

I've been meaning to post this here for the last week or so, let me know your thoughts!?