4 Various Ways to Use Compose Action in Power Automate [With Examples]

In Power Automate, the Compose action is a handy tool for creating and manipulating data within your flows. When building an automated process, you often need to work with different pieces of information, whether combining values, formatting text, or preparing data for later steps. The Compose action helps you do just that by letting you define and store data.

In this tutorial, I will explain the Compose action in Power Automate and its versatility through various practical scenarios. You will learn how to use Compose for tasks like creating JSON formats, adding properties to arrays, converting arrays to strings, and converting strings to integers.

Compose Action in Power Automate

The Compose action in Power Automate is a versatile tool for creating, transforming, and storing data within flows. It enables users to input values or expressions that can be reused later in the flow, making information management easier.

The Compose action combines multiple pieces of data into a single output, such as merging text strings or modifying data formats, like adjusting dates or numbers. It acts as a temporary container that helps streamline data handling during the automation process.

The Power Automate Compose action accepts one parameter called Input. This parameter allows you to provide a single value or expression that you want to store or manipulate. The input can be a static value, a variable, or a result from a previous action in the flow. Once you’ve defined this input, you can use it in other actions within your Power Automate flow.

How to Use Compose Action to Create JSON Format in Power Automate

The Compose action in Power Automate is helpful when you must structure data into a specific format, like JSON, to send or use in other actions.

Imagine you have a SharePoint list containing customer orders and need to send the details of each order in JSON format to an external system.

For this example, I created a SharePoint list called Customer Order:

Now follow the below steps:

1. Create an automated cloud flow. Give the flow name and select the trigger When an item is created. Also, provide the Site Address and List Name.

2. Add a compose action and provide the below input value:

{
  "OrderID": @{triggerBody()?['OrderID']},
  "CustomerName": @{triggerBody()?['CustomerName']},
  "Product": @{triggerBody()?['Product']},
  "Quantity": @{triggerBody()?['Quantity']},
  "Price": @{triggerBody()?['Price']}
} 

If you want, you can add send an email action to send this JSON format.

Now click on Save and run the Flow manually. Once the flow runs, add an item to the SharePoint list.

After the flow runs successfully, you can see the JSON in the compose output.

How to Add a Property to an Array using Compose Action in Power Automate

Let’s say you’re managing a list of employees in Power Automate and want to add a “Location” property to each employee record in the array. This can help organize your data without changing the original source.

Now follow the below steps:

1. Go to Power Automate, click the Instant Cloud flow, enter the Flow name, and choose the trigger flow (i.e., manually trigger a flow).

2. Add the Initialize variable action and Name the variable “EmployeeArray,” set the type to Array, and add the following array as the Value:

[
    {
        "FullName": "Taylor Smith",
        "Age": 28,
        "Department": "Marketing"
    },
    {
        "FullName": "Jamie Lee",
        "Age": 35,
        "Department": "Finance"
    }
]

3. Add the Apply to each action, using the EmployeeArray variable as the input to loop through each object in the array.

4. Inside the loop, add a Compose action. In the Input field, use the following expression to add a “Location” property to each employee object:

addProperty(item(), 'Location', 'New York')

Now click on Save and run the flow; after the flow runs successfully, you can see the property added to each object in an array.

How to Use Compose Action Convert Array to String using Power Automate

Suppose you have a SharePoint list called Project Tasks. Inside this list, there’s a column called Assigned To (Person), which allows multiple people to be assigned. When a new item is created, you want to send an email to the manager. However, if you directly include the assigned people’s display names, Power Automate will treat this as an array and apply a For Each loop, which is incorrect.

In this example, we’ll see how to convert an array to a string in Power Automate, allowing you to send all assigned people’s names in a single email.

1. Create an automated cloud flow. Give the flow name and select the trigger When an item is created. Also, provide the Site Address and List Name.

2. Add a select action to pull out only the Assigned People name field from the array.

3. Add a Compose action. In the Compose field, use the join function:

join(body('Select'), ', ')

This expression joins the names in the array, separated by a comma and space.

4. Then, Add the Send an email action inside the true section and provide the below parameters:

• To: Provide manager email.
• Subject: Provide a subject line for a mail.
• Body: Provide a detailed description of a mail.

Now click on Save and run the Flow manually. Once the flow runs, add an item to the SharePoint list.

After the flow runs successfully, your manager gets an email.

How to Use Compose Action to Convert String to Integer Using Power Automate

Now, I will show you how to use the compose action to convert a string to an integer using Power Automate.

1. Go to Power Automate, click the Instant Cloud flow, enter the Flow name, and choose the trigger flow (i.e., manually trigger a flow).

2. Add the Initialize variable action and Name the variable “varString,” set the type to String, and add the Value as 24:

3. Add a Compose action and use the Int function to convert the string to an integer:

int(variables('varString'))

Now click on Save and run the Flow manually. The result will be displayed in the output of the Compose action.

Compose vs Variable Action in Power Automate

I will explain the difference between Power Automate compose and variable action.

In this article, I explained how to use the Compose action in Power Automate for various data-handling tasks, such as creating JSON, adding properties to arrays, converting arrays to strings, and converting strings to integers. I also covered how Compose differs from the Variable action.

Related Power Automate articles:

• Use Delay Action in Power Automate
• Rename Subfolders in a SharePoint Document Library Using Power Automate
• Delete File From SharePoint Using Power Automate
• Use Send an Email (V2) in Power Automate
• Check the Condition If Blank in Power Automate
• Get Email Address From Name in Power Automate
• Get All SharePoint List Items in Power Automate

Bijay Kumar

After working for more than 18 years in Microsoft technologies like SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI), I thought will share my SharePoint expertise knowledge with the world. Our audiences are from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. For my expertise knowledge and SharePoint tutorials, Microsoft has been awarded a Microsoft SharePoint MVP (12 times). I have also worked in companies like HP, TCS, KPIT, etc.