List item marked as closed → Send an email to specified person → Close a task in Planner
The tricky part of this flow was ensuring the email triggers at the correct step and only sends once (not each time the item is updated). Keep reading to dive into my process of building this flow.
1
The Need
The team was managing a list where they enter all requests from their customers. The entire process involved manual entry, so they wanted some automation built in to ease the process. I first built a Microsoft Form that connects to the List so that their customers can submit requests themselves. The request automatically generates a new item in the List as well as a task on a Planner board. The next step was to facilitate the process of closing the requests so that they didn't need to mark it complete in 2 places, as well as notify the customer that their request was fulfilled.
2
Working through the logic
The team wanted an email to be automatically sent to the person who initially submitted the request once they filled information in a summary field and marked the item as closed. Then they wanted the task on the Planner board to automatically be closed out. I built the basic flow, then started adding the conditions. I then started to brainstorm on how to ensure the flow didn't get triggered repeatedly and send the customer an email more than once.
3
Preventing duplicate triggers
Once a list item met all criteria to trigger the flow each time it was updated, I added an "Email sent" field that was a true/false to the List. I then added a final step to the flow to update the List item and mark that field as true. Then I added a condition back at the beginning to only run if the field was still false. This is way, I knew once the email was sent, that list item wouldn't trigger the flow again.
4
Errors and Troubleshooting
Instead of sending from myself, I wanted the email to send from a shared mailbox, so I tried using the "Send email from a shared mailbox (V2)" trigger. Each time I tried to run the flow, it failed with an error message that I didn't have access to the shared mailbox. I had already tested sending emails from the shared mailbox, so I knew I had access. After some searching I decided to try the "Send an email (V2)" trigger and in the "From (send as)" field I put the shared mailbox. I resubmitted the flow and it worked! The emails now sent from the shared mailbox to the original submitter.
Here's a peek at the final flow:
