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Bidirectional Filesynchronization (OneDrive - DropBox)

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Posted on by Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee

Hi,

I´ve got a file on my OneDrive (4Business) and the same file on my DropBox.

If it´s getting modified from one of them, it should be copied/overwritten to the other. There is a Flow for each system.

As expected, this will lead into an infinite loop!

So I changend the modify to a delete -> create. But both Flow´s still process it as a modify.

Now I´m searching for a nice solution to only process changes, which were raised by a user (me) and not the other Flow!

Du to the fact, that I´m the owner of both Flows, the property "Modified by" will be my user in all cases.

Some Ideas are:

Deactivating the other Flow during the modification (doesn not work, because it´s not realtime)
Creating some kind of "Global Variable" (File?!?) which somehow works as ignore-gate
Submit special metadata (doesn´t work: Readonly)

Maybe you got some ideas how I could make that possible

I´d be happy for any suggestion!

Thomas

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v-bacao-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @Anonymous,

Could you share the details of your Flow configuration?

Perhaps you could consider storing the file in the specified folder after the change, using the current time as the file name, similar to the version.

Specify the folder of the trigger and set the Condition to execute the following action only if the folder where the file is located is not equal to the specified folder.

Best Regards,

Barry

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Hello @v-bacao-msft
the Flow´s are quite easy. But since my testings in it, a little bit to large to post them as one image.

When a file is modified in Dropbox, I have to compare the Filename, due to existing Backup-Files in that folder.
This has to be done with toLower(), because Dropbox delivers everything lowered.

Afterwards I need to iterate all files on OneDrive, because it cannot be found by filename. I need the FileId:
That´s it from this side.

OneDrive is more straight foreward:

As I wrote, I tried a lot with metadata, but it does not seem to help.

I think the Idea of a "global variable" aka special file will be the only solution.
But I guess it is quiet a lot overhead and many conditions to do so. In both Flows.

If there are no other ideas, I´ll try this approach and come back with the results!
Thomas

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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A small update on this:

Using another file to use it as a "global variable" is pure horror!
The Flow is getting more and more nested, because you have to doublecheck everything.

FileChanged:
Global-File Exitst?
Yes
ReadFile()
Last Update manually?
Last Update by DropBox?
SourceFile OneDrive?
Synch()
UpdateGlobalFile()
Last Update by OneDrive?
SourceFile DropBox?
Synch()
UpdateGlobalFile()
- No
Synch()
UpdateGlobalFile()
And so on... What might looks easy, includes several steps to read and store. And synch & update the global file must be created 3 times, or source it out to another flow (Which does not make it easier to maintain).

I gave up on this and ended up with a simple, partially manual solution:
If OneDrive changes the file, it allways will be update to DropBox (most cases are in this direction).
If DropBox changes, I have to press a FlowButton, which updates the OneDrive file.

Off course I have to remind myself about pushing the button manually...

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