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How can I remove all items in a collection from a SharePoint list?

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Posted on by Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee

I have a collection of items that I want to remove from SharePoint. I want to remove all of the items when a button is clicked if they are in said collection. The items in the collection are added directly from a gallery that contains the SharePoint items, so the data is exactly the same.

I assume I need to use Remove, RemoveIf, or a combo of one of these with ForAll, but I cannot figure it out.

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RandyHayes 76,299 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Anonymous

You can use the RemoveIf function.

Without knowing specifics of you data, a generic example would be this:

RemoveIf(yourSPList, ID in yourCollection.ID)

I hope this is helpful for you.
Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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@RandyHayes , thanks for responding. I'm getting the following error:
Invalid argument type (table). Expecting Boolean value instead.
I've configured this as follows:
RemoveIf('Call Metrics Reporting',ID=colItemstoDelete.ID)
The collection can contain 1 or more items from an SP list, but they are literally captured from a gallery and stored in the collection.
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RandyHayes 76,299 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Anonymous

You have used an equals operator (=). Recheck the formula I posted, it uses an in operator.

RemoveIf('Call Metrics Reporting',ID in colItemstoDelete.ID)
Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Doh! That was the problem-child. Thank you much. You are a gentleman and a scholar.
RandyHayes 76,299 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Anonymous

Any time!
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@Anonymous @RandyHayes
For my own learning, I'd be interested to know if this use of 'in' throws a delegation warning or silent delegation (my term, where you don't get a warning but the formula only returns up to 2000 items)?

Seems to be a grey area in my knowledge I'd like to get more info about.

Cheers
RandyHayes 76,299 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Anonymous

No, the in operator is not a delegable operator. It will throw a delegation warning.

The second term you refer to as silent delegation already has a name...it's called Data Row Limit. It is controlled in the advanced settings. If your Remove operation includes the removal of the amount of records you have in the limit, then it will not be complete.

If delegation on large data sources is a concern, then other provisions for removing are needed. Such as a slower, but usable, ForAll with an embedded RemoveIf. Not very efficient. And even that can be subject to delegation issues as well as record limit issues (depending on the amount).
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@RandyHayes
Thanks mate, always great to get you insights. I was thinking that you knew something I didn't because you were pointing the 'in' at a collection rather than a datasource and somehow this was different. Alas, not to be 🙂

I will try to use 'Data Row Limit' more but I think my brain will always associate this process with the word 'silent' so that I remember to check my functions, lol.

Great to see you back answering Qs on the forums as well mate. I enjoy your input and do my best to read and learn from it.

Thanks again.
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@RandyHayes, is there a way to configure this solution to avoid delegation issues as that is indeed a concern with the project I posted about? For example, would sorting the data prior to applying the RemoveIF at least ensure recent items are being deleted?
RandyHayes 76,299 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Anonymous

Your delegation issue comes from the in operator. In order to avoid the delegation, you would need to remove the use of that operator.

One way to achieve this would be the use of a ForAll function - similar to this:

ForAll(RenameColumns(colItemstoDelete, "ID", "removeID"), RemoveIf('Call Metrics Reporting',ID = removeID) )

Also with this, as a bonus, you can modify the base collection as you go (if you need to for some reason):

ForAll(RenameColumns(colItemstoDelete, "ID", "removeID"), RemoveIf('Call Metrics Reporting',ID = removeID); RemoveIf(colItemstoDelete, ID=removeID) ) -OR- (if you have some status column in the collection) ForAll(RenameColumns(colItemstoDelete, "ID", "removeID"), RemoveIf('Call Metrics Reporting',ID = removeID); UpdateIf(colItemstoDelete, ID=removeID, {status:"Removed"}) )

Just a little extra to keep in mind.