Sharepoint to Excel - messed up headers

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Posted on by VLD

Hi all,

I am trying to export a Sharepoint list once in a while as a excel file. here is the overview of the flow:

First problem I was having was solved after I figured out Flow only wants to produce cvs and not xlsx or xlsm files.

Second problem I am not being able to solve are headers. Ideally I want to pick column I export because otherwise I get a lot of columns not even visible in my list view.

When I use Select operator the flow fails because it doesnt recognize column header names.

If I remove Select operator completely file gets produced by column headers end up with these names above: h6yd, kcyo...

It must be some relating to sharepoint list header having one or more spaces.

Is it possible to perform a select operator and use only needed columns for CSV output and somehow have the output use the names for column headers like they are stated in the Sharepoint list?

Thank you!

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VLD 6 on at

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Through a lot of trial and error I found out that the problem is not with the spaces in the column titles, but select data operator fails when there is blank field in the data.

Since the sharepoint list will house survey results with a lot of questions, many of which are optional, there will be a lot of blank entries.

Is there any way to counter this or replace blank with null or empty space or fix this in some other way?

Thank you,

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v-yuazh-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @VLD,

You could add a if() expression to the column with might have empty values.

I have made a tes on my side to create a sharpoint list as below:

The status column of an item is empty in the list.

And I have created a flow as below:

The expression of status column as below:

if(empty(item()?['status']),null,item()?['status'])

The flow would run successfully as below:

Please take a try on your side and let me know if your problem could be solved.

Best regards,

Alice

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VLD 6 on at

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Hi mate,
thank you so much for your answer.

I tested it and it doesnt work.

When I try it I dont get the dynamic content to put in the expression formula. I only get option of vlaue and list of items ( entire output of the get items action/step ).

But when i try manually typing in an object I want to use ( see below ), then I get error - wrong expression:
if(empty(item()?['Recommend_O365']),null,item()?['Recommend_O365'])

So basically i want to have an expression that will replace object Recommend_O365 with a value I chose ( null, nil, NA, *, blank, etc. ) in case that this particular object comes out empty in the sharepoint list. I want to do that for all objects that might come out with empty field.

Though to be honest I find it odd. Export to csv should be pullink blank fields and just leave them blank.

Thank you so much for any assistance.

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