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Drowning in Apply To Each: Trying to update a SharePoint Event Calendar based on a SharePoint list

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Posted on by Nunya1

Hi, distant friends.

I am attempting to update 2 separate Event Calendars based on one SharePoint List after I learned that SharePoint Lists' calendar view does not support the overlay feature that their event calendars DO support. Something I thought would be simple just got complicated.

My goal as a workaround then, is to build a flow which will, upon trigger of a list item being either updated or modified, in turn update or create a new event on 2 Event Calendars: one calendar is to keep track of the planning period, and one calendar will keep track of date ranges for due dates. If I can get my Flow to update these two Event Calendars, then I can use the SharePoint overlay feature to have different color-coded event entries for the planning period and when the due date time period would kick in. E.g. imagine putting on a conference. You need to plan for the conference, then the conference may take place over a week.

The problem: I thought this would be pretty easy, but I'm obviously doing something wrong (or not efficiently). My flow has been swallowed alive by apply to each'es.

With this broad view of my flow, can someone help explain where I'm going wrong with my approach? I am a newbie and don't know what I don't know, so I have no creative solutions. I tried to add an expression for one id in the hopes that it might clear things up, but when I add anything to match up the fields from the event calendar to the list, more apply to each actions get added.

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Building flows

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creativeopinion 10,508 Moderator on at

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@Nunya1 I'd recommend switching to the Classic Designer as the New Designer is still buggy and apparently it sometimes adds Apply to Each (aka For Each) loops when it's not necessary—though I cannot confirm if this is the case for your flow.

However, if you could switch to the Classic Designer and toggle open all of your actions and upload a screenshot of that—it'll be easier to provide recommendations.

In the meantime, you might find this YT Tutorial helpful 3 Mistakes YOU 🫵 are Making with the Apply to Each Action in your Microsoft Power Automate Flow

In this video tutorial I’ll go over how to avoid these common mistakes when using the Apply to Each action in a Power Automate flow:

1️⃣ Looping through a Single Item

2️⃣ Creating Unnecessary Nested Loops

3️⃣ Looping through an Unfiltered Array

At the end of the video I share a few helpful insights when it comes to using the Apply to Each action in your flow.

IN THIS VIDEO:

✅ How to avoid the Apply to Each action with a single item array

✅ How to use the item() function to access dynamic content in an array

✅ How to prevent unnecessary nested Apply to Each action loops

✅ How to use the Select action

✅ How to convert an array to a string with the Select action

✅How to use the Filter Query field

✅ How to count the number of items in an array

✅ How to use a condition control

✅ How to use the concurrency control

✅ How to set a top count

✅ How to use Compose actions for troubleshooting

Hope this helps!

If I helped you solve your problem—please mark my post as a solution ✅.
Consider giving me a 👍 if you liked my response!

👉 Level up your Power Automate skills by checking out my tutorials on YouTube
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Nunya1 77 on at

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Thank you, Creative Opinion-- I always love when you answer. So thorough. It's been some time now, so forgive me for the late reply. I remember trying many of your solutions, but in the end, it just wouldn't stop giving me woes, so I scrapped the whole thing and started over. I rethought the whole thing and came from a different angle. Instead of having the Flow pull from one list and update another, I created a table in Excel, and then have the Flow just look at that one Excel sheet and update a SharePoint list item. The new version stopped putting things in apply to each. I THINK one of the main differences was changing an action from "Get items" to "List rows" in Excel instead, and everything seems to have calmed down as a result. The whole flow is much, much, much simpler. It might not be the original vision, but it will work.

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