Auto number in Sharepoint list based on column

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Posted on by SanchezITM

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Hi guys,

I have 1 list with this format.

Client Company Number

Jill	Nike	N-001
Eve	Adidas	A-001
John	Nike	N-002
Will	Nike	N-003
Sarah	Adidas	A-002
Jen	Nike	N-004

I want auto-number the "Number" column based on "Company" column. If I add a new client for Adidas company, the "Number" field must be "A-003".

How can I do that?

Categories:

Building flows

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PieterVeenstra 13 on at

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Simon Denton wrote and article about this a few weeks ago:

https://buildbod.com/2018/05/21/automatic-document-numbering-using-microsoft-flow/

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SanchezITM 153 on at

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Wow, I think this is too complex for my case, right?

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PieterVeenstra 13 on at

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You will somehow have to control that when two items for the same company are added you will still get unique numbers. That could becoem quite complicated.

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SanchezITM 153 on at

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Hi @Pieter_Veenstra what if I count the rows with "Adidas" company and update item "Number" with "A-00"+Result ?

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PieterVeenstra on at

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What do you expect to happen wehen two Adidas items are added very quickly after eachother?

Two flows will be triggered. Then both flows will count the number of items and both items will get the same number of existing items back ... -> something could go wrong.

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PieterVeenstra 13 on at

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One way to avoid these double IDs would be to create a scheduled flow that looks at your list. Collects all the items without an ID and then hands out the ids as it processes the items. That way there is a single flow handing out the IDs.

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ScottShearer 25,270 Most Valuable Professional on at

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I'd like to suggest another way to prevent duplicate IDs is to make the column in SharePoint that stores the ID a unique column ("Enforce unique values" in column settings). That should force the Flow to generate an error. My suggestion would be to configure a run after action or scope that attempts to assign an ID again (a new ID) after the first failure.

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