Error when sending mails via Flow

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I created a flow that sends out emails to users in my company (based on specific fields in a Sharepoint list). This SharePoint list also contains email addresses of the sites I am trying to contact via flow. The issue here now is, some of these emails only go to one person, whereas other mails are supposed to go to up to 4 people. 

As of last month, I was able to leave the columns with additional email addresses (for the second, third or fourth contact person) empty. When running the Flow last week, I got the following error message:

"status": 400,

"message": "Property ccRecipients in payload has a value that does not match schema.

Does anyone have an idea on how to solve this issue? Can I use some sort of placeholder instead of leaving the cells in SharePoint empty?

Thanks and kind regards,

Felix

[ScottShearer]

@Anonymous 

Please post a screen shot of your Flow and I'll try to assist.

[Anonymous]

@ScottShearer Hi Scott,

thanks for your quick answer. You can find the screenshot below. All the user-specific information comes from a SharePoint list. The email addresses in the CC field are sometimes empty in my SharePoint list, as I would otherwise be sending the email to the same person twice.

Thanks for your help!

Felix

[ScottShearer]

@Anonymous 

As I understand it, your issue is that you want to include on the CC line in an email the email address provided as answer in Microsoft Forms.  The cc email is optional and is sometimes not provided.  I have created a Flow to test this scenario and cannot replicate your issue.  Can you provide a screen shot of the eamil confirguration to include the CC line as well as the configuration of the question from Forms where the email is to be provided?

[Anonymous]

@ScottShearer  Hi Scott,

not quite. I have a SharePoint List in which I can select if people have submitted certain information. In this same list, I have email addresses that are responsible for these submissions (doesn't have anything to do with forms).

The recipient line always has an email address, but the CC line doesn't necessarily. This field in the SharePoint List is currently just empty (not filled with data). In the past, this wasn't a problem (the Flow would run without issues). But as of last week, my Flow failed.

I was wondering if there was some sort of placeholder I could use. I could obviously just insert an email address, but it worked with the empty fields in the past.

Felix

[ScottShearer]

@Anonymous 

You clearly said that this was coming from a SharePoint list - sorry.....

That said, I still can't replicate the issue.  I am referencing a person or group column in the SharePoint list for the CC line.  There is no error when I don not have an entry in the person or group column and it works as designed when the column is populated.

I also tested with the email entered in a text column and did not generate an error when that column was empty either.

One suggestion:  delete the reference to your column in the CC line then save end exit your Flow.  Then, open and edit the Flow, add back the reference in the CC line and test.

[Anonymous]

@ScottShearer 

I deleted everything from the CC line, saved and then re-entered the information. Upon testing, this still does not work though. I have multiple email addresses in the CC line and have now noticed if more than one is empty, the Flow fails. 

Do I have to separate the references with a semi-colon? The CC field in the failed instance is "; ;", which is where the error is coming from I guess.

Could you try replicating the error with two references in the CC line with both of the fields empty?

Thanks and regards

[ScottShearer]

@Anonymous 

What type of SharePoint column is the column in which you are storing the CC email addresses?

[Anonymous]

@ScottShearer 

In my case, all email columns are formatted as "Single line of text".

Cheers

[ScottShearer]

@Anonymous 

The issue is, as you pointed out, the two semicolons.  I'm not sure why they are there, but you can control for it with an expression or a condition.

See my example below where I use a condition.  My email column is called Email Test.  My condition accounts for both an empty string and anything else that does not include an '@'.

You may have to enter '@' in the expression window.

You could write an expression in the CC line instead of using a condition and a variable, but I thought using the variable was less confusing.

The check for null must be the first condition.

[Anonymous]

@ScottShearer 

Hi Scott,

this works, but in my case, I have multiple of your "Email Test" Fields (up to 4 Mail addresses going in the CC line).

So if one of them is empty the Flow would fail at this point. Do I need to create a variable with all email addresses in one variable?

I have just now tried deleting the semicolons between the "Email Test" Fields in Flow and inserting these semicolons in the SharePoint List, but this doesn't work either.

[ScottShearer · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous 

The bottom line is this - if all that appears in the CC box is one or more semicolons, the Flow will error out.  If there is at least one email address, then multiple semicolons won't matter.

Email addresses must be separated by a semicolon.

So, you need to control for the semicolons in one way or another.  You could use the approach that I presented or some other type of logic (probably using an expression) to control for empty columns or columns with just a semicolon.  If you use my approach you will to do it for each text column where you can enter an email.

I don't see the CC line in your screen shot, but I am guessing that you have just selelcted the text columns via dynamic properties and inserted semicolons between them. 

Anotther way might be to use an expression that check for a null value - if it is null than insert an empty string.  Otherwise insert the text field with a semicolon after it.  Your expression for each column on the CC line would look something like this:

if(equals(EMAIL TEXT COLUMN FROM DYNAMIC PROP,null),'',concat(EMAIL TEXT COLUMN FROM DYNAMIC PROP,';'))

I haven't tested the expression above - I don't believe you'll need to do so but if it errors out replace the reference to null with an empty string - ''

If you have three places where a CC email address could be entered, you would enter that expression three times on the CC line - each one referencing a different column.

To control for anything other than an email address being entered, you might consider using column level validation.  While not 100% effective, you can require that an entry contain the '@' symbol.

[Anonymous]

@ScottShearer 

Hi Scott,

thanks a lot for your support! I am now using the expression you posted (with '' instead of null) and everything is now working again. I still have no idea why this was working in the past and now didn't work anymore, but nonetheless, with your help, I managed to fix it!