HTML Table in Power Automate: Learn HTML table formatting using Microsoft Power Automate step by step

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In this article we will learn about the HTML Table in Power Automate – nowadays, the buzzword in the market is MS Flow or Microsoft Flow – after 2019 ignite, it has been renamed to Microsoft Power Automate. In this tutorial, we will learn about how we can learn HTML table formatting using Microsoft Power Automate or Microsoft Flow step by step. I would say that without MS Flow, SharePoint Online is incomplete. When we talk about SharePoint Online, we must talk about other related technology like Microsoft Flow, PowerApps, SPFx, Teams, etc. These all go side by side. As Microsoft is focusing more on SharePoint Online, the on-premise version is not what they are recommending to use, not even the SharePoint designer workflow. In this context, we could say that MS Flow is a recommended/alternate approach to the modern way of developing a workflow, instead of a designer workflow. There are plenty of advantages of MS Flow – I am not going in-depth for this as the purpose of this article is to create HTML in Power Automate, so my focus would be on how we can make use of Create HTML action inside Power Automate. 

Example of use cases of HTML table in Power Automate

There are many use cases in our SharePoint application. I’ll briefly discuss a few – let’s say your boss has assigned tasks to the team members and at the end of the day, he/she wants to get the consolidated task status auto-emailed. Then, the MS Flow with “Create HTML” is the right choice. One more example – let’s say we have a “Customer-Sales” list that holds the details of customer sales summary information and at the end of the day, an auto email should be sent to the sales manager who will summarize the daily sales. In this case, also, MS Flow with the “Create HTML” action is the right choice. In this article, I would just read a “Customers” list data and will send an email in the form of an HTML table as POC (proof of concept). 

Step-by-step process to format an HTML table using Power Automate

I assume that you know how to create that list with custom columns, so I am skipping the list creation step, hence here is my already created “Customers” list. 

 Using the MS Flow, I will send these list data to the email in the form of HTML. So let’s start — how can we do this? From your “Customers” list page, click on the “Flow” drop-down list and then click the “Create a flow” button, as mentioned below. 

 Click on the “Show more” drop-down list. 

 Select “When a new item is added in SharePoint, complete a custom action” template as mentioned below.

Note:

• In a real-time scenario, you need to start your flow based on some specific conditions. Here, I’ll show a POC, i.e., whenever an item is created in the SharePoint list, this flow will get triggered. 

 Click on the “Continue” button as below. 

 Then, we’ll land on the below page. https://tinyurl.com/y3vfo4yb Note

1. https://<country&gt;.flow.microsoft.com/ in this URL <country> is dynamic, this will be based on the country from where you are accessing, where it displays as “India” as I am accessing from India.
2. And in the parameters.sharepoint.site=<your SharePoint online site>

“Site Address” and “List Name” are pre-populated – make sure these are correct. 

 At this moment lets name this flow “Create and Send HTML Table to Email” and click on the “Save” button then click on the “+Next step” button 

 Then search with “SharePoint” and select the “Get Items” action as mentioned below, 

 Select the “Site Address” and “List Name” as mentioned below, 

Note

In Show advanced options – we can get the data based on the specific query (like camel query) – in this, we are not handling those, we’ll get all data from the “Customers” list – just showing the screen, then click on “+Next step” button. 

Add data operation “Compose” action: search for “Compose” text and select the “Data Operations” as below, 

 From the next screen, select the “Select Data Operations” action. 

 We will get the empty “From” and “Map” in the “Select” operation action – you need to click on the from the box and need to double click on the “value” (from Dynamic content) tab.  

Dynamic content mapping with the SharePoint columns 

 I have created all columns and correspond mapping but shown here in screenshot only for Email ID mapping to show how to create – create a meaningful mapping name corresponding to your column, then click on the second box (add dynamic content), under the dynamic content tab in search box type your column name which you want to map, then select your column under “Get Items” section. 

Click on the “+ New step” button 

 Select “Create HTML Table” action like below – search with “Create” text then click on “Create HTML Table” action 

 Now we can see the “Create HTML Table” action below, 

Select

 Click on “+ New step” as below, 

 Select the “Send an email” action as below, 

 Enter the mandatory parameters below for the email action. 

Note
In the above configuration “Is HTML” should be selected as “Yes” otherwise we’ll not get tabular format output – so it’s very important, though it is optional. Now we are done with the basic configuration – let’s test this flow at this moment, before that we must save it. Click on the “Test” button as highlighted below, 

From the next screen, select the first radio button and click on the “Save & Test” button as below, 

 Wait for a few seconds – we will get the below screen, 

 As the above-highlighted message says – add a new item to the SharePoint “Customers” list to trigger the flow. 

Come to your flow screen(tab) – if everything goes fine you should see the below flow ran a successful message. 

 Open your outlook office 365 mailbox using the below URL, https://outlook.office365.com/owa/?realm=SPRND.onmicrosoft.com&exsvurl=1&ll-cc=1033&modurl=0

Here you can see an email has come with all customer details in the HTML tabular format in the email body – we are done with the basic purpose of this article but the HTML table in the email body does not look nice, however, this is the default behavior. Now we’ll format it a little to look better. 

Format the HTML table using Microsoft Power Automate

We will add padding and color to the above HTML table – insert a new step in between the “Create HTML table” and “Send an email” action like below, 

 Click on the “Add an action” link like below, 

 Select “Compose” data operation action like below, 

 Rename your default “Compose” to Format Customer Table as below, 

Enter the below text like the below screen

 replace(body(‘Create_HTML_table’),'<table>’,'<table border=”3″ bgcolor=”87ceeb”>’) 

 Now, double click on “Send an email action” and select the appropriate output from “Format Customer Table” as below and save the flow. 

We are done with the basic formatting – however, you can explore more about this on your own. 

Test the flow without going to the SharePoint list

Click on the “Test” button from the top right corner as we did in our previous test and perform the below operation as mentioned in the order and finally, click on the “Test” button (no 3). 

 Now, you can see your flow execution status – if everything goes fine you will see the below successful message. 

Now go to your office 365 outlook email tab again, you can see the new email has come with proper customer details with a formatted table. 

Summary: What do we have here?

 Thus, in this article we have learned the below topics:

• A brief introduction to Microsoft flow or Power Automate.
• Use cases of HTML table in MS flow (Power Automate).
• Actual Implementation – step-by-step walk-thru.
• How to run the flow from your previous successful run without going to list.
• Formatting HTML table in Microsoft flow (Power Automate). 
• How to design an HTML table border using Microsoft flow
• How to create an HTML table using Microsoft flow 
• How to format an HTML table using Microsoft flow 
• How to compose email formatting using Microsoft flow

References – HTML Table in Power Automate

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/flow/getting-started
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/flow/data-operations

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