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Getting Null/Empty Values to Produce a Value of 0 so the flow Doesn't Fail

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Posted on by diegothompson12

Hello, I need some help. I currently have flow that when an item is created or modified from the Project Budget Hours List it is than converted into the Jobs Budget Hours List. The issue I am having is any time a user leaves a field blank in the form/list the flow will fail because of a null value. The low works perfectly if all the field are filled but not every time will every field be filled. I was wondering if somebody can help me with producing a value of 0 when a field is empty/null. My flow is Located below:

I would appreciate any help thanks!

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Building flows

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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Use the expression if() combined with empty() to check the value.

It will be something like if(empty([value]),0,[value]) so this expression says If the [value] is empty, then return zero 0, if not then return [value].

A better example for the create item might be something like:
if(empty(triggerOutputs()?['body/AdminDSG']),0,triggerOutputs()?['body/AdminDSG'])

Just use your values in the expression. Let me know if this works for you,

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diegothompson12 78 on at

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Hello @wskinnermctc,

Thanks for the help. It kinda of works but puts in a zero no matter if there is a vale or not!

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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You said you wanted it to show a zero 0 if they left the field blank.

Did you want a different output?

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diegothompson12 78 on at

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Hey @wskinnermctc

That is correct. I want the field to be 0 if it is left blank but it is still making it zero even if there is a number in that field.

Put the expression under the design DSG field to test it out:
Formula:
if(empty(triggerOutputs()?['body/Design_DSG_HRS']),0,triggerOutputs()?['body/Design_DSG_HRS'])
Project Budget Hours:
What is created on the Jobs Budget Hours List:
I could be doing something wrong.

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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I think it has to do with the sharepoint column name for your list Project Hours Budget and the column that has the display name "Design_DSG HRS" in your screenshot.

Can you go to the column settings in your list and check the internal name of the column? You can see it up in the address bar.
SharePoint Column Internal Name

You can also check the value in the flow by hovering over the dynamic content.
SharePoint Column Name Dynamic Content

So for my example column the expression would be:
if(empty(triggerOutputs()?['body/Design_DSGHRS']),0,triggerOutputs()?['body/Design_DSGHRS'])

Even though the display name is "Design_DSG HRS" the internal name is "Design_DSGHRS" so the internal name needs to be used in expressions.

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diegothompson12 78 on at

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Hi @wskinnermctc

Here is the error message I am getting:
The formula I used:
if(empty(triggerOutputs()?['body/Design_DSG']),0,triggerOutputs()?['body/Design_DSG'])
The coulmn I am Trying to use:

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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Ok got it, this should work all of the time.

We are using the coalesce() expression which gets the first non-null value from a line of items. So coalesce("Dan","Steve","Mark") would return "Dan". If you have coalesce(null,"Steve","Mark"), then it would return "Steve" since it skips over the first null item.
I am also wrapping a zero 0 in the int() integer expression just to be sure it returns a number.

coalesce(triggerOutputs()?['body/Design_DSG'],int(0))

Here is a screenshot of the expression
Coalesce Expression

This is basically saying if your value is null then return a zero 0 as an integer which just means number.

Let me know how this works,

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diegothompson12 78 on at

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@wskinnermctc Thanks this works perfectly. This helped me understand a lot more about this application.

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