Powerautomate acknowledgement letters - merged file will not open

Carla Murphy

Hello, I have a number of flows that produce acknowledgement letters. The single letters come out fine, but the merged word file doesn't open. Any ideas why this might be happening?

I get a message when trying to open the file that: Sorry, this document cannot be opened for editing. Open is desktop app.

I can't figure out what is causing this.

Thanks!

Alex Wong

@Carla Murphy

do you mean your power automate populate a word template, saved the word doc after. This word doc that you saved is not opening?

Can you show the power automate action on populate word template and the action where you created the word doc after it has been populated. (show edit mode and run history)

Ann Barnett

@Carla Murphy
I'm having the same problem. The individual letter and envelope in Sharepoint look fine after running the flow, but I can't open the merged letter file in Sharepoint. I can open the merged envelope file in Sharepoint so I'm not sure what I have done wrong. I am new to power automate acknowledgement letters and am using the simple ack letter flow.

Alex Wong

@Ann Barnett
can you elaborate on what you mean by “individual letter” vs “merged letter”?

Ann Barnett

@Alex Wong In Sharepoint after running the simple acknowledgement letter flow, I see the acknowledgement letters and envelopes word docs for each donor from my gift batch and I also see “mergedenvelopes.doc” and “mergedletters.doc". I can open the “mergedenvelopes.doc" , but not the “mergedletters.doc”. I think it has something to do with the advanced parameters in the “Poplulate Microsoft word template repeating letter” in my flow.

Alex Wong

@Ann Barnett
Populate a Microsoft Word template does not create a file in SharePoint, the “content” of this action can then be used in a “create file” action, be it sharepoint, onedrive, google drive, etc. Or it can directly be used without saving anywhere directly in attachment of an email.

If your flow is saving file to sharepoint, then the loop (apply to each gift) that populate the word document, and then another action to “create sharepoint file" would only create one word document per gift. There would not be a “master merged” word document that contains all the gift's acknowledgement letter, unless your flow does more to create such “master merged” word doc. (by the way doc file is not good, the file should be in docx format, without going into too much details, your IT policy may prevent opening doc file for security reasons.

Going back to what I relied to Carla previously, please provide screenshots of your flow in edit mode and run history mode to help determine what may have went wrong.

Ann Barnett

@Alex Wong Sorry, it is in the docx format, not doc.

Ann Barnett

@Alex Wong

Alex Wong

@Ann Barnett
very blurry screenshot due to Community way of processing image.. sigh.. but able to make some info out of it.

Next time don't paste image too “wide”, you can just screnshot the “center” area of the action only, will not be as blurry

So from what I can tell, the actions are (in a nutshell ignoring compose and variable):

• trigger (recurrance)
• gift list
• condition on if any gift
  • i can't see the yes/no, but considering your apply to each gift is “outside” of the condition, I'm assuming your condition if no gift has an action to “Terminate” the flow
• apply to each gift
  • get donor info
  • populate word letter
  • create letter file
  • populate word envelope
  • create envelope file
  • some gift action - can't tell
  • mark gift as acknowledged
• apply to each (no idea what this is)
  • populate word document - blurry, but suggest this is a populate word document with repeat control
• save another file (i don't know what this is)
• populate word document again - looks to be repeat control for envelope
• save another file (assuming this is the repeat control for envelope)
• send email

The red above looks to be the error. I am assuming you have another word template that has the repeat control for intaking an “array” that will create ONE word document for all acknowledgement. If that is true, then the apply to each in red is the problem, there shoulnd't be an apply to each.

Carla Murphy

@Ann Barnett Hi Ann, Happy to hop on a call with you to take a look. let me know what is a good time.

Ann Barnett

@Alex Wong I appreciate your help Alex. I'll take a look. Thanks again!

Ann Barnett

@Carla Murphy That would be a huge help! Thank you! I am in the office today, whenever you have availability that would be great.