Exercise - Monitor incoming emails

  • 5 minutes

You can create a flow that automatically performs one or more actions after it's triggered by an event. For example, the flow can monitor your Outlook inbox and when an email with a specific subject line and email address arrives, the flow will take the attachment and save it to a SharePoint library.

Prerequisites

Microsoft Office 365

Specify the SharePoint site and library

You can use any SharePoint site of your choice and can also use an existing library.

In this scenario, we'll use the following SharePoint site and its default Documents library, which is available out-of-box.

Screenshot of the SharePoint site.

Specify an event to start the flow

First, you must select the trigger (event) that starts the flow.

  1. Sign in to Power Automate by using your organizational account.

  2. Select My flows.

  3. Select New flow, and then select Automated cloud flow.

    Screenshot of the create power automate automated cloud flow dialog.

  4. Under Choose your flow's trigger, enter Outlook, select the When a new email arrives (V3) trigger and select Create.

    Screenshot of selecting Outlook trigger.

  5. Select the trigger and then select the Show all button.

    Screenshot of show all.

  6. Add the following:

    From - 'your org email'

    Include Attachments - 'Yes'

    Subject Filter - 'Daily report'

    Importance - 'Any'

    Only with Attachments - 'Yes'

    Folder - 'Inbox'

    Screenshot of advanced settings.

Specify an action

  1. Select Insert a new step and select Add an action.

  2. Search for Create file, and then select the SharePoint Create File action.

    Screenshot of the create SharePoint file action.

  3. For Folder Path select /Shared Documents

  4. Click in the File Name field, and select the lightning bolt to pull up the Dynamic Content.

    Screenshot of Enter data from previous step button.

  5. Select Attachments Name from Dynamic Content.

    Screenshot of Dynamic content pane with attachement name selected.

  6. Click in the File Content field and then select the lightning bolt to pull up the Dynamic Content.

  7. Select Attachments Content from Dynamic Content. The result should look like the image below.

    Screenshot of add attachments options.

  8. Once the Attachments Name is added, the Create file action is automatically added inside of an Apply to each action. This means that if there are multiple attachments with the email, the flow will create a file for each attachment.

    Screenshot of the apply to each.

You have successfully built a Power Automate flow, which will monitor your Outlook inbox for any emails that have the text Daily report in their Subject line and have Attachments.