Extend Outlook SDK based automation

As a first step, since an email search can result in multiple emails, based on our search criteria, we will be adding logic to the automation to handle each email.

1. SAP Process Automaton comes handy with several loop controls. Add a Forever loop activity after Log Message You can read mode about it from our documentation page
   

   

2. Forever loop needs to make sure it is executed until there is one email in the search result. In order to know this, we will use Check Current Email activity which will return if there is any pending emails in the search context. Kindly make sure to test an appropriate output parameter for this activity. In my case, I have used isContextCurrentEmailExist as output parameter.
   

   
   
   While looping we will be using Get Next Email (Context) which will move the loop needle.

3. The output of Get Next Email (Context) activity step is a boolean which you can see here
   

   

4. The result of the previous step will return true if an email exists in the search context, we will stop the loop when there are no more emails to process. We will use Condition Expression Editor and include Is not or ! on the boolean output parameter part of the check the condition. Add the given expression through the expression editor and close it.
   

   

5. Add a Log Message that loop has reached its end. You can give custom message if you wanted
   

   

6. Add appropriate log message to this step
   

   

7. if none of the conditions are met, the workflow of the automation will continue through the default branch. Now to the default branch, we will log the loop index first. Log Message comes handy during debugging. You may remove it, in case you no longer needed them.
   

   

8. You can optionally include a custom log message.
   

   

9. For Each email in the loop context, let us retrieve its email Subject through Get Email Subject activity
   

   

10. Add a log message to print the email subject
    

    

11. To the log message event, add your custom message
    

    

12. Add Get Next Email (Context) activity to advance the loop variable
    

    

13. Save and Test the automation, you should see appropriate results
    

    

14. You can include additional attributes related to your email in search context result. For ex, see the various activities you can use to retrieve additional attributes in your search context
    

    

At this stage, we have converted our little project to process a series of emails in search context. An Email may contain one or more file attachments. In the next step, we will download file attachments.

In this step, we will create a local folder in your windows file system. We will define folder name dynamically using current timestamp. Then we will save each email attachment to that local folder.

1. Create a string variable folder name. For this we will be using String datatype and drag and drop into the workflow. You can include it above Get Next Email (Context) activity as shown below.
   

   

2. To the string variable, we will assign a timestamp value as its value. this is done using Date.now().toString() via the expression editor.

   In real world, you may wanted to use your business process specific folder Name

   

3. Just make sure, you set desired variable name as the output parameter
   

   

4. Using the folder name we will create a folder in the file system. we will include relevant Create Folder activity from the File System collection to the flow
   

   

5. In case you wanted the new folder to be created in a specific path, you can append that location to the folder name. make sure you append double slash (\) to the path
   

   

6. Here we are planning to save all attachments in an email in one go by adding Save All Attachments activity to your flow. You can also individually save every attachment using Save Mail Attachment. It is a good idea for you to explore difference between both these options on your own.
   

   

7. We will refer the folder path from the previous step as the destination location for saving attachments
   

   

8. You can test the project.
   

   

9. If any email in your search context contains an attachment, you will see them saved in the local folders. By our logic, you can review it based on recently created folder in your local filesystem
   

   

Many at times you wanted the automation to handle sending an acknowledgement or an email reply to the email received.

1. Add Send Reply (Outlook) activity to the flow after Save All Attachments activity
   

   

2. In the activity properties, Create Custom Data to the email reply activity
   

   

3. You can optionally include additional attributes like an email ID to be kept in cc, bcc in your reply
   

   

4. You can optionally modify reply email’s subject. For this tutorial, we have added a custom subject to the email reply as Email reply.
   

   

5. You can include custom message as email body in your reply
   

   

6. Save and Test the project
   

   

7. You can validate the result by checking your email reply
   

   

We assume that once you finish processing an email from your search context, say with the file that was saved and you wanted to move the email from current mail box folder to a “Processed folder”. This will be a good enhancement to this tutorial project you can try.

• Do review our Microsoft Outlook Best Practices from our help documentation page
• Also don’t forget to review Outlook Email Best Practices Automation from our SAP Process Automation Store