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Why does the modified by column always have my name

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Posted on by alopez222

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Each time an item is modified in the sharepoint website, the modified by field has my name when I never modified that particular item. What are some possible reasons for this cause? I've created some power automate flows for the Sharepoint website but none of them have an action that will directly update the Modified By field with my name.

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Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

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If a flow with an automated trigger updates a SharePoint item the modified by field will show the person who's security context is used to run the flow. In the case of an automated trigger that would be the maker of the flow (you). That happens no matter what field you update.

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alopez222 160 on at

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I did not know that. Good to know, is there any way around it? Anything I can do so that the user who is truly modifying the item has their name on the Modified By field?

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Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

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The only way around it is to add a step at the end of the flow to use a REST call to change the Modified By to the value you want it to be. Here's a blog post that shows how.

#FlowNinja hack 78 - modifying Modified By and Modified time with Microsoft Flow — John Liu .NET

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alopez222 160 on at

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From my understanding, this basically set it equal to the value I desire but I can't set it to the person that modified it. There are a number of people who can modify an item so I can't set the Modified By field to a set person.

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Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

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The point is to have some way to determine inside the flow who triggered the flow by what they did. With an automated trigger that information should be available in the trigger details. Then you can use that value to set the modified by at the end of the flow. For example if the flow is triggered when an item is created or modified then the trigger will have the details of who modified the item to kick off the flow. Its only later when the flow modifies the item that your name is applied. So you can use the information from the original trigger in the REST call to set Modified By just before the flow ends.

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