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Condition if sharepoint column contains text-based values.

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Posted on by Dimitri_

For context (i don't know if this helps):
I have a sharepoint online list with a column that is text-only. Sharepoint doesnt let you modify/delete the first column and when you try filling your list the first column always stays in the fill-in form so i'm stuck with that. to make the list more professional i tried to improvise to use that column for numbers only.

okay now to my concern/issue that i'm having:
i'm trying to automate this flow with power bi and for security measures i want to check if the list containing the column 'Views'
contains any text-based values it should do the following:

Screenshot (57).png

The 'text' value i put there is just to show what i want (Kudos for symbols such as comma's etc.). If there is something or if you think the way i formed this flow isn't the way for my desired result, i am looking forward to you guy's cooperation.

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Business Process Flows

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David_MA 12,521 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Re: Condition if sharepoint column contains text-based values.

I have a sharepoint online list with a column that is text-only. Sharepoint doesnt let you modify/delete the first column: Are you referring to the Title column? If so, it is correct that you cannot delete this column as it is used as the column you click on to open the item. You can rename it if you want.

After that, I am not entirely following what you are asking. Do you have a text field in your SharePoint list that is named "Views" and you just want to check if it contains any data? If so, how you currently have it configured will check to see if that column contains the word "Text", which I doubt is what you want.

What you want to do instead is to use an expression to make sure that column is not empty:

The expression you would use in the first part would be:

empty(triggerOutputs()?['body/Views'])

Be sure to populate false in the condition with false from the expression builder. Do not manually type the word false.

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Dimitri_ 14 on at

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Re: Condition if sharepoint column contains text-based values.

I already have this column imported in power BI and have formatted the views column in power BI as Whole number (Keep in mind the views column is still in text-only in sharepoint). The idea is that the views column in sharepoint will be filled with numbers. If i accidentally put some text in it. power BI will read this as a text and not a whole number so there will be issues. That's i wanted to make this flow, if the column contains some kind of text or string, it should just notify me that i have some text values and not go forth to refresh the dataset.

For more context, when i just put in numbers into the text based views column and refresh the dataset manually it automatically updates the dataset with the recently given numbers. but when there is text/string typed in, it gives me errors because the formatted whole number views column in power BI does not read it as numbers.

Or maybe am i getting this all wrong? if so please correct me.

If i'm still incomprehensive, please let me know! i will try my best to explain things 🙂

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David_MA 12,521 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Re: Condition if sharepoint column contains text-based values.

You can try using this expression, which will return true or false:

isFloat(triggerBody()?['text'])

The isFloat function can check if a string can be parsed as a float, effectively checking if it only contains numeric characters. This is assuming that your field only contains one number. I think it would be better to change your SharePoint column type to a number instead so that text cannot be entered in the first place.

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Dimitri_ 14 on at

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Re: Condition if sharepoint column contains text-based values.

Where can i put this code, just where i put my example “text”?
Also thank you for the help. But as ive stated before i can(not) make a numeric column just for professionalism reasons ( i know its stupid, but i was just curious )

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grantjenkins 11,059 Moderator on at

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Re: Condition if sharepoint column contains text-based values.

I would actually change your list so you're not using the Title column and instead create another column called View of type Number. You can then hide the Title column from your List view and from the Add/Edit views.

Then when you go to add a new item it will only show the View column and set the Title column (behind the scenes) to Untitled.

For this example, I've got a list called Views List with the default Title column and another columns called View of type Number. Note that I would also set the View column to a Required field so the user must enter a value.

If I add a new item now and only add a value for the View column, you will see that the Title field gets set to Untitled.

To hide the the Title column from the view, click on Add column then Show or hide columns. Then uncheck the Title column.

Your List view will now only show the View column (Title column is hidden).

This hides the column from your List view, but users will still see it when they go to add a new item or edit the item. To remove it from there, click on the + New button then Edit columns, and uncheck the Title column.

Now when I go to add a new item, or edit an existing item, I will only see the View column.

If you also wanted to remove the Attachments column as shown in the New form above (shows by default), you can go into the List settings > Advanced settings and set Attachments to Disabled.

Now in your Power Automate, you would just reference the View column and completely ignore the Title column.

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Dimitri_ 14 on at

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Re: Condition if sharepoint column contains text-based values.

Actually i was just curious if there was something to detect String in a Text-based value column with numbers in it. But thank you so much for the workaround! I have tried your method and think its much more efficiently then what i was trying to do. Again, thank you both for your time and effort!

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