Retrieving data effectively within SharePoint lists can sometimes present challenges, especially when dealing with complex data types such as multi-person fields. Fortunately, with the power of Power Automate, we can overcome these challenges. This blog explains how.
When Might You Need This?
- Automated Notifications: When you need to send automated notifications or alerts to multiple individuals involved in a process or project.
- Task Assignment: When assigning tasks or responsibilities to a team, and you want to notify all members involved.
- Reporting and Analysis: When extracting data from SharePoint lists for reporting or analysis purposes, and you need email addresses for further processing.
- Workflow Automation: When building automated workflows that involve sending emails or triggering actions based on SharePoint data.
The Challenge: Multi-Person Fields in SharePoint
SharePoint offers a convenient multi-person field type, allowing users to assign tasks, responsibilities, or ownership to multiple individuals within a list item. While this feature enhances collaboration, extracting and utilizing this data effectively can be tricky, particularly when it comes to obtaining a concise list of email addresses for communication purposes.
The Solution: Power Automate
Power Automate provides a robust set of tools for automating workflows and integrating data across various platforms, including SharePoint. By leveraging Power Automate, we can extract email addresses from multi-person fields and consolidate them into a single string, facilitating streamlined communication and automation processes.
Implementation Steps
1. Trigger
Choose an appropriate trigger, for this blog I am using the simplest trigger.
![](https://sudeepghatak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-9.png)
2. Initialize Array Variable
Create an array variable to store the extracted email addresses.
3. Get Item
Retrieve the item from the SharePoint list that contains the multi-person field. For this blog I am using Get item action but you can use either “Get Item” or “Get Items” depending on your specific requirements and the context of your workflow.
- Get Item: This action retrieves a single item from a SharePoint list based on a specified identifier (typically the item ID). It’s suitable when you’re dealing with individual items or need to perform actions on a specific item.
- Get Items: This action retrieves multiple items from a SharePoint list based on specified criteria (e.g., filter conditions). It’s suitable when you need to work with multiple items simultaneously or need to process a batch of items.
Which one is better depends on your workflow’s logic and requirements:
- If you’re dealing with a specific item and its associated multi-person field, “Get Item” might be more appropriate.
- If you need to process multiple items in the SharePoint list and extract email addresses from their multi-person fields, “Get Items” would be the better choice.
In many cases, you might find “Get Items” more versatile because it allows you to retrieve a batch of items based on specified conditions, providing more flexibility in processing multiple items within a single Flow. However, if your workflow specifically revolves around a single item, “Get Item” might be more straightforward and efficient.
![](https://sudeepghatak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-10-1024x405.png)
4. Select
Use the “Select” action to extract email addresses from the multi-person field. Remember to toggle the setting to return just the Email address
![](https://sudeepghatak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/5zpx9NGl6Z-1024x373.png)
6. Join
Concatenate the array of email addresses into a single string using the “Join” action.
![](https://sudeepghatak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-11-1024x469.png)
This is the full flow
![](https://sudeepghatak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-12-362x1024.png)
Here is the Output
![](https://sudeepghatak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/06ZlhTK8GE-1024x577.png)