A panelist responded that traditionally this was achieved using:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Classic workflows with Send Email and Use Template actions, or<\/li>\n
- Plugins using InstantiateTemplate and SendEmail requests<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Today, you can achieve the same functionality using Power Automate<\/strong>, with greater flexibility and no-code\/low-code implementation.<\/p>\n
In this article, you will learn how to create a Power Automate Flow that sends an email using a Dynamics 365 Email Template when a Lead is created.<\/p>\n
Business Scenario: Automatically Email New Leads Using Power Automate<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Imagine you are working for a company called Larence and Co.<\/em> Your website has an inquiry form, and every submission creates a new Lead record in Dynamics 365.<\/p>\n
Your requirement is simple:<\/strong>
\nWhenever a new Lead is created, you want to automatically send a \u201cThank You\u201d email using a predefined Email Template.<\/strong><\/p>\nThis is exactly what you will implement using Power Automate.<\/p>\n
Step 1: Configure the Power Automate Trigger for Lead Creation<\/h2>\n
We will create a Power Automate Flow that will get triggered on the creation of the Leads record. For this, we will select the \u2018When a record is created, updated, or deleted\u2019 trigger and will select \u2018Create\u2019 as the trigger condition. If you want to learn more about scope, refer to this blog to\u00a0\u00a0know how\u00a0to use Scope with Common Data Service in Microsoft Flow<\/a>.<\/p>\n
![\"Power](\"https:\/\/www.inogic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Power-Automate.png\")
<\/p>\nStep 2: Retrieve the Dynamics 365 Email Template<\/h2>\n
We will add the \u2018List Records\u2019 step to retrieve the Email Template by its name (Title). Let us suppose we are retrieving the template below.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.inogic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Send-an-email-using-the-Email-Template-in-Power-Automate-2.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAdd a filter query to retrieve template by the title as shown below<\/p>\n
![\"Power](\"https:\/\/www.inogic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/1Power-Automate.png\")
<\/p>\nThis step will return the \u2018Lead Reply-Web Site Visit\u2019 template. We will use the GUID of this template in the next step.<\/p>\n
Step 3:<\/strong> Use \u2018SendEmailFromTemplate\u2019 action<\/strong><\/p>\n
This action is used to send an email using the Email Template. To execute this in Power Automate we need to add the \u2018Perform an unbound action\u2019 step.<\/p>\n
For this step\/action, we need to pass the below parameters,<\/p>\n
Action Name<\/strong>: Select\u00a0\u2018<\/strong>SendEmailFromTemplate\u2019 from the list of actions.<\/p>\n
TemplateId<\/strong>: GUID of the Email Template. In the second step, we retrieved the email template, we can use the following expression to get the GUID of the template.<\/p>\n
first(body(\u2018List_records\u2019)?[\u2018value\u2019])?[\u2018templateid\u2019]\n
Regarding:<\/strong>\u00a0This is the Record to be set as the regarding of the email. Here we will pass the newly created Lead as the regarding. Pass the record as the following<\/p>\n
\/leads(triggerOutputs()?[body\/leadid])<\/p>\n
Target<\/strong>: This is the parameter that we need to pass to the sender and recipients of the email in JSON format. Below is the JSON structure<\/p>\n
{<\/p>\n
“email_activity_parties”: [
\n{
\n“partyid_<entitylogicalname>@odata.bind”: “\/<entitysetname>(<guid of the record>)”,
\n“participationtypemask”: 1
\n},
\n{
\n“partyid_<entitylogicalname>@odata.bind”: “\/<entitysetname>(<guid of the record>)”,
\n“participationtypemask”: 2
\n}
\n],
\n“@@odata.type”: “Microsoft.Dynamics.CRM.email”<\/p>\n}<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It is important to understand the Target parameter\u2019s JSON structure because this is the place where we set TO, CC, BCC, and FROM for the email.<\/p>\n
In the above JSON, I have used \u2018participationtypemask\u2019 as 1 and 2. Use 1 to set FROM and use 2 to set \u2018To\u2019.<\/p>\n
If you want to set CC and BCC then use 3 and 4 as \u2018participationtypemask\u2019 respectively.<\/p>\n
![\"Send](\"https:\/\/www.inogic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/2020-09-23-12_16_32-Greenshot.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis way \u2018SendEmailFromTemplate\u2019 action will allow you to send an email using the Email Template. The subject and email body will come from the email template and Sender, Recipients (To, CC, BCC) will be set based on the Target Parameter.<\/p>\n
Below is an example of \u201cPerform an unbound action\u201d and its JSON<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.inogic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/2Power-Automate.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTemplateId is the GUID of the template retrieved from the second \u2018List Records\u2019 step, \u2018Regarding\u2019 is the entity object of the lead that is being created and in the Target parameter, \u2018FROM\u2019 is being set to the Owner of the lead and \u2018To\u2019 is set to the lead entity object.<\/p>\n
{
\n“email_activity_parties”: [
\n{
\n“partyid_systemuser@odata.bind”: “\/systemusers()”,
\n“participationtypemask”: 1
\n},
\n{
\n“partyid_lead@odata.bind”: “\/leads()”,
\n“participationtypemask”: 2
\n},
\n{
\n“addressused”: “sam@test.com”,
\n“participationtypemask”: 3
\n},
\n{
\n“addressused”: “john@test.com”,
\n“participationtypemask”: 3
\n}
\n],
\n“@@odata.type”: “Microsoft.Dynamics.CRM.email”
\n}<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSometimes, you may want to send an email to the email address which doesn\u2019t exist in your system. In that case, we can use the \u2018addressused\u2019 parameter. In the above code snippet, you can see set\u00a0sam@test.com<\/a>\u00a0for BCC being used<\/p>\n
In addition, you may want to send more than one recipient in either TO, CC, or in BCC. It is possible to set multiple objects in TO, CC, and BCC by adding multiple entries in the \u2018email_activity_parties\u2019.<\/p>\n
Below is how the final working Power Automate Flow looks like<\/p>\n
![\"Send](\"https:\/\/www.inogic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Send-an-email-using-the-Email-Template-in-Power-Automate-5.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBelow is the screenshot of the newly generated mail using the Email Template<\/p>\n
![\"Send](\"https:\/\/www.inogic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Send-an-email-using-the-Email-Template-in-Power-Automate-6.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNote: If any of organization\u2019s recipients is either a contact, lead or account and is marked as\u00a0do not allow<\/strong>\u00a0for Email then the flow will fail with an error saying, \u201cRecipient of type \u2018Lead\u2019 with ID \u2018xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx\u2019 is marked as non-Emailable\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Send](\"https:\/\/www.inogic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Send-an-email-using-the-Email-Template-in-Power-Automate-7.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWrapping Up<\/strong><\/p>\n
We can now consider Power Automate Flow to send automated emails using the Email Template using the \u201cSendEmailFromTemplate\u201d action. In the net part of the article<\/a>, we shall see how to send bulk email messages using Power Automate.<\/p>\n