AI Vendor Follow Up

An end-to-end vendor follow-up automation that extracts PO/line-item details from emails/PDFs, checks Business Central, and creates/updates SharePoint cases with ETA outcomes.

Power AutomateAIAzure Form RecognizerBusiness CentralSharePoint

Summary

Problem

Vendor ETA updates came in through emails/PDFs and required manual reading, matching POs, and updating multiple systems.

Solution

Automated email + PDF extraction, AI parsing of PO details, and system updates to Business Central + SharePoint.

Result

Faster ETA updates, fewer misses, and a consistent SharePoint case trail for follow-up accountability.

Business impact

This automation removes daily manual vendor-chasing and keeps expected receipt dates consistently updated in Business Central, so sales can communicate reliable ETAs to customers.

Time saved

Saves roughly 30 minutes/day on vendor follow-ups, plus another 10–15 minutes/day previously spent manually updating Business Central.

Customer experience

Keeps Expected Receipt Date consistently up to date, enabling sales reps to give accurate delivery timelines instead of “best guesses” and reducing avoidable back-and-forth.

Order Increase

Increased repeat-order rate by ~20% (internal tracking) after Expected Receipt Dates became consistently maintained, enabling sales to give reliable ETAs and reducing churn driven by uncertainty.

Gallery

Screenshots and artifacts from the build (sanitized where needed).

Real-time intake

Trigger: When a new email arrives in the Inbox (attachments included). The flow converts email HTML to text. If PDF attachments exist, it extracts text using Azure Form Recognizer.

AI extraction

An AI model extracts PO + line item details: item number, quantity, expected receipt date (ETA), and relevant notes.

System updates

Business Central: looks up the PO + line items.
SharePoint: finds or creates a case per line item for tracking.
Updates: writes expected receipt dates in Business Central + SharePoint, or sets follow-up status if no date is found.

Daily follow-up runner

A daily flow processes SharePoint items with status = “Waiting Vendor Reply”, calculates day boundaries, selects unique PO numbers, sends follow-ups if ETAs are still missing, updates statuses, and builds an HTML summary of outstanding items.