How to Save Form Response to Lookup Column in SharePoint and Keep Attachments

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Posted on by powerpepper

106

Hi all,

I'm working with these:

Submitters List
Departments List
Requests List
Requests Form

Request List contains 3 lookup columns pulled in from Submitters List and Departments List:

Submitted by column pulls from Submitters List. This is a dropdown question in Request Form.
Covering for column pulls from Submitters List. This is a dropdown question in Request Form.
Department column pulls from Departments List. This is a text input question in Request Form.

I found, applied, and adapted two solutions that recommend saving the values in a variable or compose but have failed. (Solution 1 and Solution 2 )

I ultimately came up with the following flow, but the responses from the Form do not save to the Requests List.

The result...

There should be data in the Submitted by columns (since that is what my flow is currently testing for only). The first Submitted by column is the look up column that should pull the response from the form and connect with Submitters List to fill in the second Submitted by column, which is the submitter's email.

On top of all this, any attachments users upload to the form are also not saved to the list.

So my first question is: How do I get form responses to save to the lookup columns in the SharePoint List?

And my second question is: How do I get form attachments to save to the SharePoint List?

I'm looking for solutions using only Power Automate. Please and thank you for your help!

Categories:

Building flows

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Suggested answer

MParikh 313 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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✅ 1. Saving Form Responses to SharePoint Lookup Columns

Use "Get Items" to find the matching record and extract its ID Assume:

Form gives you submitter’s name or email

"Submitters List" contains submitters with matching names/emails

✅ Steps in Power Automate:

Trigger: "When a new response is submitted"

Get response details

Get items from Submitters List

Filter Query: Email eq 'FormResponseEmailValue' (or Name, whichever is matching)

Use first result’s ID for the Lookup field

Create item in Requests List:

Submitted by (Lookup field):outputs('Get_items')?['body/value'][0]['ID']

Repeat similarly for:

Covering for → query Submitters List again

Department → if Department is a lookup too, use Get Items on Departments List

✅ 2. Saving Form Attachments to SharePoint List

Use "Get response details" + "Get file content" + "Add attachment"

✅ Steps:

Use "Get response details"

For each attachment:

Add "Get file content"

File Identifier: response.outputs['attachments'][0]['id'] (loop this)

Add "Add attachment"

Site/List: Requests List

ID: ID of item created in Requests List

File Name: Use dynamic content (e.g., attachments.name)

File Content: from "Get file content"

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powerpepper

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@MParikh Thank you for responding. Because your solution introduced new concepts, I had to do more research and did find additional tutorials that helped me figure out the second part of your solution for attachments, using formula expressions with dynamic content. Unfortunately, I'm still struggling with the first part of your solution. I have questions for steps 3 and 4.

3. Get items from Submitters List
Filter Query: Email eq 'FormResponseEmailValue' (or Name, whichever is matching)

The Submitters list looks something like this:

ID	Employee	Team	Email	Employee (Org Detials)
1	Lastname, Firstname	Employee's Team	employee@email.com	Office 365 Employee Info
2	Lastname, Firstname	Employee's Team	employee@email.com	Office 365 Employee Info
3	Lastname, Firstname	Employee's Team	employee@email.com	Office 365 Employee Info

ID is the default ID in SharePoint. Employee is the Title column. Team and Email are single line text. Employee (Org Details) is a person column. In the form, I want the user to select the employee's name (as seen here) from the dropdown and the response is submitted to first Submitted by (lookup) column in Requests List. The second Submitted by (lookup) column (which the user does not see) will show the selected employee's email. The form should only deal with the Employee/Title column and submit that value to the backend. Based on your solution, I set up Filter Query as Title eq 'Submitted by' which is the response value from the form. Did I set it up correctly?

4. Use first result’s ID for the Lookup field
5. Create item in Requests List:

Submitted by (Lookup field):outputs('Get_items')?['body/value'][0]['ID']

I think I can figure out step 5 if you help me with step 4. How do I perform step 4 in Automate? I searched actions and didn’t find anything related to lookup columns in SharePoint. Am I choosing an action? Or am I using formula expressions?

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powerpepper 106 on at

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UPDATE: July 2025

If it's possible (because I keep seeing tutorials saying it is and it isn't), I have not yet figured out how to save form responses into a SharePoint list lookup column. However I did figure out how to save basic form responses to basic SharePoint list columns. I used the steps outlined in this tutorial by Reza Dorrani, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-hiDOPAG-4 (between 4:40 - 14:40 minutes). Why it took me so long to find this tutorial, I have no idea. But, I'm more than happy to have found it! No compose/select/variables used! 😅 And just to clarify, my SharePoint list uses single select choice columns, single and multiline text columns. My form uses the same type of questions, plus attachments of course.

In order to use the lookup columns in SharePoint, I either have to change the data column manually - which defeats my purpose at this time - or not use them at all. If anyone discovers a simple (between 1-2/maybe 3 step) way to move form responses to lookup columns using automate, let me know. Otherwise, I hope this helps new ambitious learners (especially), and saves you some valuable time, tears and heartache!

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