Power Automate Trigger Condition Formulas Cheat Sheet: Ready-to-Use Examples for Business Hours & Email Filtering

Source: Dev.to

Trigger Conditions

Power Automate trigger conditions let you specify when a trigger should fire. In the new designer they’re available under the Settings tab, and in the classic designer under the Settings menu. The syntax is the same as the “Filter array” action in advanced mode.

Using trigger conditions prevents the flow from executing at all when the condition isn’t met, which reduces run counts and resource consumption.

Learn more about limits and configuration

Date and Time

Date‑and‑time formulas are most often used with Scheduled triggers.

// Example: add 9 hours to UTC now (adjust for your time zone)
addHours(utcNow(), 9)

Day of the Week

These formulas are handy for flows that should run only on weekdays, weekends, or a specific day.

// Only run from Monday to Friday
@and(
  greaterOrEquals(dayOfWeek(addHours(utcNow(), 9)), 1),
  lessOrEquals(dayOfWeek(addHours(utcNow(), 9)), 5)
)

// Only run on Saturday and Sunday
@or(
  equals(dayOfWeek(addHours(utcNow(), 9)), 0),
  equals(dayOfWeek(addHours(utcNow(), 9)), 6)
)

// Only run on a specific day (Wednesday)
@equals(dayOfWeek(addHours(utcNow(), 9)), 3)

Result of dayOfWeek: Sunday = 0, Monday = 1, Tuesday = 2, Wednesday = 3, Thursday = 4, Friday = 5, Saturday = 6.

Note: Public holidays are difficult to handle with trigger conditions; they’re usually filtered inside the flow instead.

Time

Use these formulas to restrict execution to business hours or outside them.

// Within business hours (09:00 – 18:00)
@and(
  greaterOrEquals(addHours(utcNow(), 9, 'HH:mm'), '09:00'),
  lessOrEquals(addHours(utcNow(), 9, 'HH:mm'), '18:00')
)

// Outside business hours
@or(
  less(addHours(utcNow(), 9, 'HH:mm'), '08:00'),
  greater(addHours(utcNow(), 9, 'HH:mm'), '18:00')
)

Time strings must be in 24‑hour format with leading zeros.

Outlook

Trigger conditions for email‑based flows.

// Only trigger for a specific sender
@equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/from'], 'sample@example.com')

// Multiple specific senders
@or(
  equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/from'], 'sample1@example.com'),
  equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/from'], 'sample2@example.com')
)

// Only trigger for a specific domain
@endsWith(toLower(triggerOutputs()?['body/from']), '@example.com')

// Multiple domains
@or(
  endsWith(toLower(triggerOutputs()?['body/from']), '@example.com'),
  endsWith(toLower(triggerOutputs()?['body/from']), '@example.org')
)

// Subject contains a keyword (e.g., "invoice")
@contains(triggerOutputs()?['body/subject'], 'invoice')

SharePoint & OneDrive

Restrict file‑based triggers to certain extensions or filename patterns.

// Only for .pdf files
@endsWith(toLower(triggerOutputs()?['body/{FilenameWithExtension}']), '.pdf')

// Filename contains specific text (e.g., "invoice")
@contains(triggerOutputs()?['body/{FilenameWithExtension}'], 'invoice')

Testing

A quick way to verify each condition is to use a Scheduled trigger that runs every minute and observe whether the flow fires.

During testing you may notice a one‑minute delay when saving the flow; this is normal because the trigger condition is evaluated after the flow is persisted.