Forum Discussion
Clicking on an email address in a drop down list opens up Outlook
ccarcallas I'm having the same issue and am trying to achieve the same result: select an email and use it in a Power Automate Flow to send an email. There is a workaround, but it takes a couple extra steps. If you replace the period in the email in the domain name (@company.com) with a https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+2024 ("․"), MS Forms will not recognize this as linkable text because it is not an actual period.
From there, you can use a function in Power Automate to replace the unicode character in the selected email address with a regular period prior to inserting the email address. You could do this with a Compose action ahead of time to keep things easy to read, or add the function directly into the email field. I have screenshot the compose action below, as this is my preference. You would then use the output of the compose as your email address in the Send Email step.
You can use this formula to replace the unicode stand-in: replace(outputs(ADD DYNAMIC CONTENT HERE),'․','.')
Because the character swap may not be obvious to others, I added a note on my compose step in case anyone else ever needs to understand this action.
Hope this helps!
- DSJAMESMay 02, 2025Copper Contributor
Hi, this would a great work around but some reason its not working for me. Can you help?
Flow save failed with code 'InvalidTemplate' and message 'The template validation failed: 'The template action 'Compose' at line '1' and column '5536' is not valid: "The template function 'outputs' is not expected at this location.".'.'.
- jerome190May 05, 2025Copper Contributor
Hi DSJAMES, This post is about replacing dot in an email address in a choice columns in forms with a https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+2024 ("․") in order to not recognize this as linkable text. Your screen capture seem to demonstrate something else... you should start a new thread in order to ask a new question and get tailored answer.
- mike4465Oct 16, 2023Copper Contributor
I did come up with a work around, however I'm not sure if this will work for you unless your emails are similar. Our company emails are formatted as such: (firstname.lastname @ company.com) . In the dropdown the options are displayed as firstname.lastname which will become the dynamic content in the flow, (i.e., email). In the To: part of the email I inserted the email dynamic content and right after entered the text @company.com. emsneds
- emsnedsOct 16, 2023Copper Contributor
mike4465 I actually started with that workaround in mind, but it didn’t make sense with the way our form was written, and I didn’t think our stakeholders would go for it. (If I didn’t have the email address in the dropdown, the next option was supposed to be the person’s name, which would create more work to implement in Power Automate than my proposed workaround). My colleagues don’t fully understand the capabilities of Power Automate or even MS Forms, so I wanted to find a workaround that would display the full email address without linking it.