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Convert time zone null when field is empty

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Posted on by Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee

I noticed that when a field I have date and time in is empty "convert time zone" returns error "null" and that makes sense. Someone know how I can go around this?

I've tried some things put cant get it to work, i've searched the forum too.

My flow looks like this:

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Jcook 7,783 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hello @Anonymous

So if I understand correctly, you might have a situation where that date field is empty. But when this happens, the flow fails and throws an error?

So instead of throwing an error, you want the flow to continue?

If that is the case. I would enable run after on the action after the one that fails on empty date.
You can do this by:
Clicking the 3 dots on the action, clicking configure run after, than checkbox Succeed, and Failed.
This is saying the action will run if the action above fails or succeeds.

—Josh
If you like my post please hit the "Thumbs Up" -- If my post solved your issue please "Mark as a Solution" to help others

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DeepakS 2,301 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Anonymous ,

You can try the option what @Jcook suggested.
Or you can try a condition to check id date is null, option (no the best ;):

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Thata exacly what I mean. I tried exacly what you said but with no luck. It says same error message "null" =(

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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I will try this sooner, i'll be back

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ScottShearer 25,290 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@Anonymous

You need to enter null in the expression window rather than as just text. If you do so, your condition will look similar to the screen shot below:

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DeepakS 2,301 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @ScottShearer

I noticed this while ago too but recently flow started to understand 'null' text. but if this is the case we need to better understand i think. i was very confused when it works for me with plain text actually.

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ScottShearer 25,290 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@DeepakS

You are correct - it will work by entering null as plain text rather than as an expression. This never worked before and I haven't seen anything saying it should work now but it does.....

I also created a condition to test for true or false. It worked when I entered true or false as plain text or in the expression window.

I know that enhancements are being made to expressions and the expressions interface in Power Automate - I suspect that the behavior we are seeing is part of those changes.

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Now i've tried some but I cant get it to work, still getting the error.. 😞

This is the flow I got right now:

The error message i get:

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DeepakS 2,301 Most Valuable Professional on at

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HI @Anonymous ,

You have 4 "convert to time " action but only checking three date in condition block for null. Please make sure you have all 4 date column in condition block.

Regards,

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efialttes 14,756 on at

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Hi!

Jut in case it helps, I tend to use coalesce() expression in order to evaluate if a sharepoint column is empty, so I add two parameters inside:

-the column value

-a default text, just in case column value is null

So if i am inside an apply to each iterating all through the items from a 'Get item', and the column is named 'myColumn', the expression would be

coalesce(items('Apply_to_each')?['MyColumn'],'myDefault')

Now, you can use it in a condition (not very fficient if you are inside an Apply to Each), or, in some scenarios a default value works like a charm

Hope this helps

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