How to create a table in Power Automate Approval request - Markdown

Approval request in Power Automate does not understand HTML, so we need to find another way to create a table and send it to the approver.
In this video we have a quick introduction to Markdown styling in Power Automate and we convert a JSON array to a presentable table in Approval Request.
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Video content
- 0:00 The need for Markdown language
- 2:33 Trying HTML in approval request email
- 8:00 Introducing Markdown language
- 10:58 Using markdown language to create table inside approval request
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[@AlirezaAliabadi]

Just a quick note. Please don't get too excited about Markdown language. It has it's own issues especially if you are using older versions of Outlook.

[@patrick2131]

Brilliant! I knew there was a way to do this...still learning Markdown, but this is exactly what I was trying to do. Thank-you!🤓

[@saeedsm57]

Worthwhile! Thanks Alireza!

[@Oz-change]

Legend! You solved a problem I was beating my head over for days. Thanks!

[@jamestten]

說明得很清楚, 謝謝你的教學指南！

[@sadabshaikh6365]

Awesome video. Thanks Alireza.

[@Mike-uz3kn]

This is fantastic. Thank you for this!

[@radhikaM914]

Wow .. awesome video. Very helpful 👍

[@s.n.senthilnarayanan749]

Very useful. Thanks for the detail explanation

[@onLearn]

Well done

[@theom8286]

saved me a ton of time. thank you!

[@francoisbelanger3238]

Excellent work. It helps me a lot

[@damianduda8701]

Great job ! that is exacly that I needed when I realized that html doesn't work here

[@shalinimenon6248]

Great learning Alireza. It's perfectly working for me. It could have been helpful if the formatting of table also added in the video as boarders and colours for the table.

[@gabatsoswekentse4699]

Thank you so much Alireza

[@yousefnasiri3421]

Really helpful, thanks Alirezaye aziz

[@tomcyamaha]

Thanks! Excatly what I wanted.

[@natrah01475]

Good sharing. I also got to know about mark down language aside by markup language

[@user-rr5bl6hp9l]

very helpful thank you

[@sashawarchoon1989]

Nice. Waiting to see new course on Udemy.

[@josecarvajal9201]

Tks you helpful me a lot of

[@golfnutt8]

Outstanding

[@sminhaj786]

Thank you so very much

[@anthonytufinoarmijos4664]

TY so much.

[@kelvin55141]

Thank you so much

[@ahilathanarasu2413]

Amazing!!!

[@AlirezaAliabadi]

Not really. Try it in real life. Once in a while it messes up the format in older versions of outlook. So explain the possible surprises with your client before you promise :)

[@rickychen1086]

Nice Video - disappointing that three years have passed the Approval Request Action still does not support HTML. Your method seems more like a compromise, and I noticed the formatting starts to mess up if you tried to reply to or forward the approval email. This makes it difficult to follow up a approval.

[@nepkou4382]

Great job on this one as it really helped me big time on the approval details part! I have a question to ask and hoping you'll notice and respond to this. I managed to create 3 different markdown tables (1 initialize variable and 1 append each table). It is well aligned in MS Teams Approvals but not in MS Outlook. Is there a way to fix it where both will be aligned?

[@charlesopuoro5295]

Thank you so much for this article. You made my life a whole lot easier. Thanks to Google too for platforms such as these that foster collaboration. Above all, thanks to God Almighty, the Creator who Himself is generous and encourages us to imitate His generous ways. Praise Jah!!!

[@SoNonWoo]

Question: I had a flow setup to use Compose Email with an HTML table. I am trying to convert it to Markdown. I have a union in there. I have a list of records that I need to combine by matching values in one field. Previously I had Parse JSON following a Select that used only one field. According to the above, instead of a compose HTML table, I compose the table by listing more fields in the Select. but this is causing problems. How to Union and Parse JSON together properly for Markup in the Approve connector???

[@benkra1234]

Thanks for this great tutorial. Is it possible to display only the newest line from the sharepoint list? So i just want the newest line, not the complete table?

[@m.bolfer]

super =)

[@bypolion]

This is a brilliant video which solves an issue I was having. Question for you though as using the Get items function retrieves all items in the list. How can I do the same for each new entry only using

[@shauryasworld8079]

Thanks for such a useful video , can we border that table ?

[@gautamrutha]

Hello - I have a similar requirement,except that each row of the table should have a checkbox to select the row, and only selected rows are approved when the approve button is clicked. Can you please explain how to do that?

[@antarikshmistry6238]

Hi, Is there a way, in case of above scenario. We send an email to the Approver and he/she updates the Unit Price for all the Title and submits it ?

[@santukondapally]

Thanks but if we want to display around 8 columns the format is missing i.e it display below the linkecan you please help in this regard

[@albeanudaniel]

thank you so much, it there any more simpler way to convert html to json? i have another scenario for this.

[@ronvdlaan1]

Should this work also on a compose action? I made a union of several previous steps where i create a HTML table with. King regards Ron van der Laan

[@s.n.senthilnarayanan749]

Can we add approval workflow with table

[@btoz6237]

Thanks Alireza , great video... Man this power automate/powerapps stuff can be so frustrating at times for beginners on a time crunch. I see an easy Create HTML table option and go to output that in my approval, but then nope, gotta learn Markdowns at the same time lol .. ugh. I guess learning is good though.

[@AlirezaAliabadi]

Even that markdown is a hit or miss depending on e-mail client :)

[@gabeintothe1106]

The "parse json" step gives me the error "The 'content' property of actions of type 'ParseJson' must be valid JSON. The provided value cannot be parsed: 'Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: D. Path '', line 0, position 0.'." What's that ? I'm following the same procedure, "get items" -> "select" -> "parse json"

[@aasheekakarkee4800]

This works in web browser outllok but doesn’t work in desktop outlook?? Any reason??

[@manojpai1988]

thank you so much for your videos it has inspired me a lot, this power automate solution works only for emails but for teams notification it shows |:---:|"the same format we did in the initialize variable.Kindly assist.

[@mfzasr5665]

Hi, I'm trying to develop a flow to accept cash request from a MS form submission and forward the same to the relevant manager. Upon approval it would be added to finance teams planner. The issue is how to select the relevant manager, I've tried to use the if function. Since it has limitations and complicated when number of entries are higher..my thinking is using a lookup function..but i don't know how to use a lookup function in flow.. appreciate if you could show how to do it..

[@sashawarchoon1989]

As per my experience there is no function similar to VLOOKUP in excel. My workaround for this is to use "Filter Array" action and then access [0] element of the action output array. "Filter array" action always returns array even if there is single element. In expression it should look like this: body('Filtered_array')[0]['ColumnName']

[@umairismail9555]

Next line is not working. Can you pls advise. Thanks

[@AlirezaAliabadi]

is am HTML tag, not a Markdown; so no surprise it is not working. Just press enter where ever you need a new line.

[@karlajoselynmunozsilos5907]

Hi, Thank you su much for shearing your knowledge!! I followed ant it worked out petty well, just wondering if there is a way to formatting the table? Letter font, color? Thank you

[@AlirezaAliabadi]

You mean like this :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/gWWZfqagptOUppY

[@karlajoselynmunozsilos5907]

I created my table through Parse Json because I am adding it into an approval process and HTML table doesn't work for approvals. I tried to use the compose varibale after the parse json but is not working :( any advice for formatting tables created through parse json? Thank you so much in advance! :)

[@AlirezaAliabadi]

@@karlajoselynmunozsilos5907 Here is your answer :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZm2qnWqqpKEj7s

[@salleymartinez7927]

Great video Alireza! This was greatly beneficial to what I needed. One thing though, my parse data consists of 3 columns (Approver, Response, Comments). Flow works perfectly when all approvers leave a comment whereas the table indicates all information. However, if one person does not leave a comment (null), the flow stops and errors. Is there a way to allow for no comments and to leave blank for that row? Please Help! JSON Input--no comment indicated by one approver: [ { "Approver": "Approver name 1", "Response": "Approve", "Comments": null }, { "Approver": "Approver name 2", "Response": "Approve", "Comments": "hi" } ] JSON Schema for the above input: { "type": "array", "items": { "type": "object", "properties": { "Approver": { "type": "string" }, "Response": { "type": "string" }, "Comments": { "type": "string" } }, "required": [ "Approver", "Response", "Comments" ] } }

[@albeanudaniel]

Hey, the error only comes if you use the testing of the flow from the flow editor, try and run the flow manually, i have had the same error. and do not copy the output from a failed flow run, copy it from a successful one.

[@DS-ro9lo]

Thank u .. simple things are not existing in the approval flow .. disappointing