Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

The flow action for SharePoint “Create new document set” does not populate a single choice column correctly. The output to SharePoint will show “Value”: “{ChoiceOption}” instead having the correct {ChoiceOption} selected.

Choice Value Incorrectly Displayed

Other flow actions (Create item, Update File, etc.) which can populate SharePoint choice columns do not have this issue when using a single choice. Multi-select choice columns need additional formatting, but a single choice can be selected in the flow and output to the column correctly.

I believe the issue comes from the “Create new document set” action itself being programmed incorrectly. And it may be running into the problem of creating a folder/documentset and applying metadata simultaneously. It seems to me like a folder/documentset cannot be created with metadata, it must be created, then the metadata is applied.

Below I’m going to show all of the details of my Document Set Content Type and how the issue happens when using the “Create new document set” action.

This is a long post because I want enough the photos available to look at my issue.

Document Set Content Type Choice Column

I have made a Document Set content type which has 3 columns where 2 of the columns are regular Text type fields and 1 of the columns is a Choice type column. This is a single Choice dropdown, does not allow multiple selections.

Below you can see the Document Set columns that were created in the Content Type. I named my document set content type “Test DocumentSet”. The two text columns are “Test Project ID” and “Test Project Name”. The single choice column is “Project Status Options”.

If I go into the edit column within this Content Type you can see the details that it is a choice column and does NOT allow multiple selections.

Document Set Content TypeDocument Set Content Type Column Edit

I created a new document library and added the content type “Test DocumentSet” in the settings. You can see the column types below. If I go into edit the choice column within Document Library settings, you can see the column settings have not been changed.

Document Library SettingsDocument Library Choice Column Settings

Create Document Set Manually in SharePoint

When I manually make a Document Set in the library, the choice column populated correctly without any error. Below you can see the new document set created and the column “Project Status Options” is filled in with the choice “Planning” correctly.
Manual Add New Document Set in SharePointManual Add New Document Set in SharePoint DetailsManual Add New Document Set in SharePoint Results

Create Document Set with Power Automate

I created a power automate flow using the “Create new document set” action. There are no other steps required in my flow since I will be filling in the details manually for this example.

Blank Step Create New Document Set

I typed values into the text fields and for the “Project Status Options Value” I used the drop down to select the single choice “Planning” as my value.

The other dropdown in this action is for “Content type Id” which is a default column, and only has the Document option. I leave this blank because the Document Set content id is provided within the drop-down in the above required field.
PA Create New Document Set Choice SelectionPA Create New Document Set Default ContentTypeID Left Blank

Below is the final view of the action before I run the flow. This also shows the Code View by using the Peek Code option. The value for the choice option shows “Planning” as the value.

PA Create New Document Set Final ViewPA Create New Document Set Final View - Peek Code

Result Outputs Power Automate Create New Document Set

Here are the results of the step. The full view is really long and hard to read so I broke it into pieces and put them side by side. I also put in a view of the Show raw inputs and Show raw outputs to see how the values are being displayed.

PA Results Create New Document Set Full ViewPA Results Create New Document Set ZoomviewPA Results Create New Document Set - Show Raw InputPA Results Create New Document Set - Show Raw Outputs

This is the document set that was created in SharePoint. The choice column shows “Value”: “Planning” as the result which is gray because it is not an option. I also show the properties of the document set which has the choices and the incorrect “Value”: “Planning” in the field.

SP Results PA Create New Document SetSP Results PA Create New Document Set Properties View

Conclusion

I don’t know why the “Create new document set” action in power automate will not allow a single choice column to be populated correctly. To me it appears the flow action itself is broken since it is not able to correctly input a drop down value.

Let me know if you have any ideas or feedback. I did try some other things like typing in the value, putting a string() expression, using a variable, but none of them worked correctly. However, there should not be additional actions required to make a built-in dropdown work correctly.

Categories:

General topics

The choice column does work inside a different action “Update file properties” that gets the newly created document set and updates the choice column.

Below is an example where I used the “Update file properties” directly after the “Create new document set” action. I used the choice column to update the value to “Completed” from what would have shown an error value like the original example.

PA Update File Properties Flow

Here are the results of the flow.

PA Update File Properties Results Long View

Since the results are long, I'm adding a zoomed in view of the same step broken to side by side.

PA Results Update File Properties Zoomed

Updating the document set after creation will have a choice column filled correctly in SharePoint. Below is the new document set that was created and updated.

SP Results PA Update File Properties

Using the additional step "Update file properties" will correct the previously incorrect value from the "Create new document set". However, this workaround should not be needed to correct a basic built-in function of an action.