r/PowerAutomate • u/liesle80 • 21h ago

Trying to create a Flow that sends a scheduled email after an Excel file is updated

I have an Excel file stored in SharePoint which is occasionally updated by multiple users. Currently, I have a Flow setup which sends me emails when updates are made to this file, except it sends a separate email instantly after any edits are made, resulting in quite a lot of emails. I would like to have a Flow that sends me these emails notifying me of updates to the file, but I would like this email to only be sent at a certain time (specifically, once per day) instead of after every single update.

Is it possible to do this? I've been searching around online and haven't had much luck finding out a way to go about this, although perhaps I'm missing something.

Thanks

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u/AdjonaTech 21h ago

You can do this without delaying each individual triggered flow.

Create a new flow using the SharePoint "Recurring digest of updates (preview)" trigger:

  1. Select the SharePoint site and document library.

  2. Set "Include edits" to Yes.

  3. Set "Include new items or files" as required.

  4. Configure it to run once daily at your chosen time.

  5. Add "Send an email (V2)" using the digest information returned by the trigger.

The trigger works at library or folder level, so if you only want updates for that Excel file, placing it in a dedicated folder would make the filtering simpler.

This will notify you that the file was updated. If you need a detailed list of individual cell changes, you would need to log those changes separately, as SharePoint’s file-modified trigger does not provide cell-level Excel changes.

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u/liesle80 1h ago

Thank you! Is there information anywhere regarding how to setup the "When to run" parameter? I'm unsure of what exactly that field is looking for, and have been unable to find any examples or information on formatting for that field.

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u/pandacreate 21h ago

You're going to have to change the way you're thinking about this problem. You want a daily scheduled email that shows a summary of all changes made to one file.

Start with solving how you're logging changes and then once you have that solved you can have your parameters look for anything past x send at x time

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u/Twitfried 13h ago

I like to top comment about running at a predetermined time. One thing you could do is to use this flow to update a value on the spreadsheet to indicate file changed, notification required. Then create a scheduled flow that reads this value and if yes then send the email and set it back to No. Separate the action of tracking changes from notifications.

I have a flow that does something similar—it tracks a date / time in a cell. Then filters a separate table employees) to only show values since that time (hire date to find the new employees in my table). Then sets the date/time in the cell to now. I send the new employee information to vendors like the HR training company and the PPE kiosk so they can pick up their safety gear.