Update SharePoint List Items Flow

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Posted on by southafrican

Hello

I'm a little new to Power Automate/Flow. Basically what I've got a setup

A User in a Power App will submit for a budget change to a certain line item. This will create a line item in a SharePoint List
The Budget change information will be held in columns dedicated for requested changes. Like a temporary place to store the information
Then once another user (approver) changes the status to approved (column) of that line item, I want the Flow to automatically pick up that that row has been approved.
Then the requested changes to the budget get moved from the dedicated columns (as mentioned in 2) to another column where the new budget will sit.

I'm sure this is possible, but as I'm new to all this, I'm not sure how to accomplish this. Through a flow, Screenshots of a possible flow would be helpful, if possible.

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efialttes 14,756 on at

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Hi!

My suggestion is to use Sharepoint trigger 'When an item is created or modified'.

Now, there are several approaches:

1.- Use either conditional triggers or a condition inside your flow; please note you need to design carefully since this can lead to infinite loops if your flow needs to update the item as I believe it does.

2.- Use an aux boolean Column to let users report when your logic should run and when it shouldn't. So SP list users manually set the flag to YES, your flows does the magic and automatically sets the flag to NO. You can combine this approach with approach#1 and this way avoid infinite loops

3.- Activate Version History on your SP list, so your flow compares current Status value and also last value stored by means of 'Send an HTTP request to Sharepoint'; in order to avoid infinite loops.

You can get a good overview of the last two approaches in the following post

https://powernimbus.com/2019/06/microsoft-flow-avoiding-the-sharepoint-list-update-trigger-infinite-loop/

 

Next steps?
My humble suggestion is:

1.- To decide which of these three approaches is the most valid for your challenge and write back

2.- To share a screenshot with your SP columns definition so we can identify their type (i.e. single line of text, choice, lookup...)

Please share with us the requested info from your Sharepoimt list current definition to proceed
Thanx!

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southafrican 31 on at

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Hello

The second option is the one I was trying before I posted here. I think its the best way to do it.

Here is a screenshot of my SharePoint list. The column; Proposed Budget & Starting CB... are where the figures get saved. 'Approval Change budget' is the trigger you were talking about. When an Approver goes into the App and changes the status of that column to Approved I want the flow to move it from Proposed Budget & CB.. in to Last Approved Budget & LA....

Does this help you?

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efialttes 14,756 on at

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Hi again!

I am afraid I will need some extra assistance, since your column names have special characters (spaces) meaning thir internal name will not be the same as the one displayed, and we need the internal name to design our flow!

So, our new flow shall make its magic whenever an approver changes 'Approval Change budget' choice column value to 'Approved' in any of the SP list items, right?

In such case, I would recommend you to:

1.- Add a 'When an item is created or modified' trigger

2.- Add a Condition action block:

-on the left side of your condition, click on 'dynamic content' and pick the column 'Approval Change budget'

-select as the operator 'equals'

-on the right side of your condition, add 'Approved' or whatever other text string you defined in your Choice column

Please hover the mouse over the left side of your condition to inspect 'Approval Change budget' internal name and share a screenshot with its internal name.

Save your flow, add a dummy item on your sharepoint list for testing purposes ('Approval Change budget' value shall not be 'Approved' yet). Once the item is created, modify column 'Approval Change budget' and select 'Approved'.

No go back and refresh your flow details page, verify your flow has been executed twice (first when you created the item, second when you updated it manually)

Once you share 'Approval Change budget' internal name, we will keep on with the design by adding 'Update item' to the true branch of your Condition.

Thanx!

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