Sending e-mail with multiple options failing when multiple users selected

[OllieP]

I've created a flow that's triggered on a selected file, it sends an e-mail with options (yes/no) to the named user. On the condition that the recipient selects yes, it then updates the file properties with the name of the user who responded.

I have two problems with this:

1. When two users are selected to receive the e-mail, if one of the two users makes a selection it completes the flow and it's not available for the second user.
2. If the flow is started on the same file for a 2nd time, different user, rather than adding that users name to the file properties alongside the first user it replaces the name.

Essentially what i'm trying to do is notify users that there's new document that's required to be read and collecting confirmation that it has been, if anyone can think of an a better way of doing this i'm all ears.   

[Pstork1]

Both of those issues would be by design.  To send an email with options that must be filled out by multiple users you would need to send multiple emails with options in parallel tracks.  The email with options establishes one set of options that are responded to by the first user who replies. To get separate options you'll need separate email actions.

[OllieP]

Thanks for the response, to be clear, are you saying the person triggering the flow will be required to trigger it for each user or can i handle that in the flow and if so how? 

[Pstork1]

No, this has nothing to do with who triggers the flow.  What I'm saying is that the options are tied to the Send Email with Options action, not the users the email is sent to..  So if you use one action with multiple users it will take the first response and replace the response when a new user responds.  To have separate responses for each user you need to use multiple Send Email with Options actions.  You would do that by creating a parallel branch for each user that you send the email to and have a separate Send Email with Options action for each user.

[OllieP]

@Pstork1 Thanks so much for your help, i've got the parallel branches set up and working, the mails go to the relevant people and they can both complete their action.

What I'm struggling with now is getting the names of the users who've completed the workflow to record against/display in the column i've created, it will only ever display the name of the last person to complete the action.

I've created a custom column, that displays People and is set to accept multiple values.

On the condition that the users that completed the workflow chose the 'Yes' option the flow should then update the file properties in the custom column with the name of the user, unfortunately it only ever displays the name of the last user to complete the workflow.

Below are screenshots of the last steps for each branch, any ideas??

 

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

The problem is that if you do multiple updates like that it will overwrite the existing users in the field when you try to add the second user.  The one way I know of to fix this is to append each name to the end of an Array variable and then submit that array when you do the update, either where you have it now or after you exit all the parallel actions.