Ion Works is a collective effort to promote the use of Office 365, document automation, and best practices in content services. This is our official blog!
Recently I have been helping clients migrate workflows from on-premise SharePoint sites to Office 365. Quite often I find myself re-building these workflows in Microsoft Flow, the successor in many ways to SharePoint Designer. The tool itself has been a great solution for many types of workflows, particularly for re-creating Site workflows that need to query multiple items in a list and perform actions on them
In order to do this, you use the Get Files (Properties Only) or Get Items actions quite frequently, which means you have to instruct Flow what to grab from the list.
The last thing you want to do is retrieve every item in a SharePoint list or library, especially if those lists and libraries are quite large and you only need to grab a few items with specific metadata conditions. In order to do this, you will need to use ODATA filters in your query (not the most friendly way for business users but something we’ll just have to live with for now).
Below is a chart of ODATA commands that you can use to help build your queries with the Get Items or Get Files actions.
Basic Operators
Operator
Format
Example
Equals
eq
Department eq ‘Human Resources’
Not Equals
ne
Department ne ‘Accounting’
Less Than
lt
ItemStock lt ‘500’
Greater Than
gt
ReserveFund gt ‘10000’
Less Than or Equal To
le
Due_x00200_Date le ‘2019-03-01’
Greater Than or Equal To
ge
WidgetCount ge ’50’
Joiners
Operator
Format
Examples
And (ensuring both values have to be true)
and
Department eq ‘Human Resources’ and Country ne ‘Canada’
Or (either value could be true)
or
Director/EMail eq ‘joe.smith@123.com’ or Accountant/Email eq ‘bob.brown@123.com’
Note – you can use multiple and and or conditions in the same query.
String Adjustments
The below filters can be used to find and/or adjust values (strings) in a column. While not a complete list, these are commonly-used operators I have used in the past.
Function
Format
Starts With
startswith(column,’string’)
Example: startswith(Department,’A’) – this produces a result that returns any item where the Department field has a value that starts with “A”.
Function
Format
Ends With
startswith(column,’string’)
Example: endswith(Accountant/DislayName,’Jones’) – this produces a result that returns any item where the Display Name value of a People Picker field named “Accountant” has a value that ends with “Jones”.
Function
Format
Contains (also known as substring)
substringof(column,’string’)
Example: substringof(ProjectPhase,’Test’) – this produces a result of getting any items where “Test” is somewhere in the ProjectPhase field of the item.
Example: indexof(Title, ‘Red’) eq 0 – this produces a result to grab items in the Title field that contain the value “red” and look at the first position in the string (the beginning). If you set the eq to 1, it will find “ed” from the “Red” value.
Function
Format
Concatenate
concat(concat(Column1,’, ‘), Column2)
Example: concat(concat(LastName,’,’), FirstName) – this produces “Chomik, Andrew”.
Note: You can use any character as you see fit to concatenate with (I happen to use the comma in the above example).
Dates and Time
Function
Format
Example
Second
second(‘Column’) eq value
day(‘Created’) eq 12
Minute
minute(‘Column’) eq value
minute(‘Modified’) eq 31
Hour
hour(‘Column’) eq value
hour(‘ApprovedDate’) eq 3
Day
day(‘Column’) eq value
day(‘ReviewDate’) eq 12
Month
month(‘Column’) eq value
month(‘SubmissionDate’) eq 8
Year
year(‘Column’) eq value
year(‘Birthday’) eq 2019
Note: Numeric (integer) values do not require any delimiting punctuation (e.g. the single quotations). And you must use the military time format.
Additionally, you can use the full string provided in a Date/Time column (depending on the format of your Date and Time column in SharePoint). You can just use the format provided in the basic operators section (e.g. DateField eq ‘2018-03-02’).
Math
Sometimes you may need to do a bit of math on a SharePoint column. The Math operators can help you find specific values. Combine the following operators with your required result using the basic operators.
Function
Format
Example
Addition
add
WidgetCount add 10 eq 50
Subtraction
sub
WidgetCount sub 15 lt 30
Multiplication
mul
Price mul 2 gt 5.50
Division
div
WidgetCount div 4 gt 5
Modulo (use this to specific the remainder amounts you may want). The example shows when you want to divide a column value by 5 and have no remainder left over.
mod
WidgetCount mod 5 eq 0
Other ODATA Filter Things to Know when using Flow
Flow will only recognize the Internal column names to be used in the ODATA Filters. You might have a Column with the Display Name called “Department” but the Internal name may have been created as “Company Department”. You will have to use the latter value, and ensure that your reference is encoded correctly when using it because of the space. Best thing to do is go to the SharePoint list settings, click on the column you want to use, and grab the Internal Name from the end of the URL.
Use the “null” value if you want to operate with items have an empty field. For example, you could input “Department eq null”. This is retrievable command from the Expressions area in Dynamic Content.
If you have already fetched items, you can use Dynamic Content in between the single quotes for your filter values (see picture below)
When returning some values, there may be more than one value you need in the item. For example, filtering on a People column will mean you need to target a particular piece of the profile. In this case, use the “column/value”. If you want the email of an Accountant, you would create the filter “Accountant/EMail eq ‘bob.smith@company123.com”.
In the future, Ion Works will show you how to use common expressions in your Get Items actions that can be useful to get the data through the workflow and give you targeted results for your data (which also applies for usage across Flow actions, including Compose, Variables, Conditions, etc.)
If you have ever been frustrated using Microsoft Flow to perform functions inside SharePoint, you’re not alone.The User Experience can be better, and here’s where you’ll notice it.
Living in a northern climate at a higher altitude in a northern country, there are some harsh daily realities we tend to deal with frequently – cracked skin from extremely dry air, formidable snowstorms that can happen eight months a year on a whim, and blowing, cold winds that streak down the east side of the Rocky Mountains and straight into your vulnerable pores, crushing your spirits along the way.
But the bane of my existence, and one that provides no shortage of anxiety, is driving in unforgiving and hostile road conditions. Getting behind the wheel when the weather wants to go full Canada is an exercise in caution. I know, I’ve been riding in cars and driving long distances for 35 years.
The dreaded and maligned pothole. Commonly found in Canada and feeds on unsuspecting sedans.
When I hit a mound of snow, a patch of black ice, or (god forbid) a huge – yet unavoidable – pothole (a Canadian special), I wince and bite my tongue, hoping that my journey doesn’t end with a broken down car and a damaged ego.
So you’ll have to forgive me when I say I can’t help but get the same feeling of dread when I set out on the open road of Microsoft Flow when I’m trying to migrate workflows or build processes in SharePoint.
Here’s another analogy: if doing SharePoint things in SharePoint Designer is a summer road in July, then doing SharePoint things in Microsoft Flow is a Canadian highway in February: you cross your fingers and hope for the best.
Don’t get me wrong; Microsoft Flow is a wonderful tool. It is the proverbial ‘glue’ of the Office 365 world when it comes to having Office apps and the larger connected app community speak to each other and pass data around in the Office 365 platform. It can do amazing things. And I use it critically with clients regularly, whether it is setting up new team sites, migrating workflows, or finding new ways to enhance the User Experience (UX).
But here’s the rub – pretending that it is friendly for users to casually use and that it does the same thing as SharePoint Designer (SPD) in all faucets of site, IA and workflow is a fool’s errand. It does not.
Just because a user can, doesn’t mean a user actually can.
Here are three common potholes …. er, scenarios in Microsoft Flow .
Flow Cannot Trigger when an Item or Document is Exclusively Modified
Well actually it can . . . But also when the item is created. The trigger action involved is “only when an item/file is created or modified”. This is a significant gap in multiple use cases, especially considering that some items need to be handled differently upon creation (e.g. an approval item, for example, may require different handling procedures). One might argue that items and documents are modified more often than they are created, especially in collaborative or team-based team sites that have working documents.
Workaround: If you’re cool to let the trigger handle the same workflow every time with no difference when an item is created or modified, then go for it. Otherwise you might consider using a Switch Case action to handle different procedures based on conditions that are checked right after the trigger action. That condition may include comparing the Created and Modified dates, and look something like this:
And in the Graphical User Interface (GUI), it might look something like this:
Some users have also had gripes about items not being modified until a second item is modified, which is just a straight-up bug.
That expression you see above – get used to it . . .
Flow makes Expression Writing as Easy as Rocket Science
I recently had to build a Flow that sent reminders on the first and fifth days of the month. Seems like a simple procedure, right? Well to perform such a simple procedure, you need to compose outputs that can handle such requests. Easy you say? ehhhhh …..
As a casual user, you’ll quickly find that in building a functional workflow that can pass information around and manipulate data, you’ll soon find yourself dabbling with Data Operations, Scheduling, or Variable handling actions (trial and error, of course). This inevitably leads you to performing some serious Google Fu just to see if you can find anything remotely accurate that resembles the exact expression you’re looking for. What you’ll find is piecemeal examples of Workflow Definition Language on discussion boards and tech communities that may have solutions (a hit or miss expectation). But it’s really a game of roulette; you’re not going to win every time.
Expecting average users to know Workflow Definition Language is a non-starter. It’s basically gibberish to anyone who doesn’t care that much, and expecting them to know this language – much like Excel formulas – is not really understanding the larger business audience that needs to use and support these flows. And the format just gets more complicated the more you have to manipulate the data:
Nested(nested(nested(obnoxiously nested(so nested its a bird egg))))
Even just using today’s date and time means you have to use “utcNow()” and have a basic understanding of ISO 8601 standards for date string formats . This is terribly inefficient for casual Jane and once-in-a-while Joe, especially with a GUI that promotes a “no-code” solution.
Workaround: Sadly, this is an unavoidable pitfall with Flow that probably won’t be going away for a while. One could minimize the use of expressions by handling data inside SharePoint list or library columns (calculated or otherwise), but having to blow out your list or library just to handle expression alternatives seems counter-intuitive. I recommend identifying and training a Flow champion internal to your company that is familiar with Workflow Definition Language and general expression assembly, at least until Flow comes around with a better GUI and UX for expression building. In the meantime, try to use Dynamic content fields where possible.
Flow Does Not Handle the Check-in/Check-out Process Very Well
Checking-in or checking-out items is a very common scenario with SharePoint. The point of it is to reserve rights to editing to one person so others have to wait their turn. This is usually true with working documents, such as proposals, statements of work, or accounting spreadsheets.
Flow does not have an overt action to check-in or check-out. Rather, one would have to utilize the SharePoint REST API and the Send an HTTP Request to SharePoint action in order to get what you need.
You can see where I’m going with this – it is already far more convoluted than this needs to be:
Again, the UX behind this procedure is already beyond what most regularly-skilled people could handle or want to try.
Workaround: Either get familiar with HTTP requests, have your SharePoint developer handle this Flow build (and maintain it), or go back to a workflow designed in SPD. There just is no pretty way to handle this, especially if your workflow has multiple different stages where check-in and check-outs are required multiple times.
Verdict
Microsoft Flow will continue to grow in use, and does have avenues for submitting idea requests. Microsoft also provides a Roadmap for developments and improvements which is very handy to follow. However until multiple features get implemented (an ongoing that takes time and user feedback) I recommend having Flow champions or specialists who can help arbitrate your Flow needs into some thing functional (or have an Office 365 guy like myself show you the ropes).
Unless you want more potholes. But no one wants that. I hope.
Ion All the Things 