Did you know you can trigger Flows for files directly in SharePoint? Let’s say that you have a contract that you want to send for approval. You need to generate a link to the file or attach it to an email, send it to the people who need to approve it, receive notifications, and merge changes. Or you press a button and let Power Automate do the work for you by using SharePoint “For a selected file” trigger that catches these requests.

Let’s see how to use it.

Where to find it?

To find it, you can search for SharePoint “For a selected file” trigger or select “Standard”:

Select “SharePoint”:

Pick “For a selected file” trigger:

Here’s what it looks like.

Let’s see the fields that we need to configure.

Fields

There are a few fields to configure so that you can take advantage of them.

Site address

We need a place to search for changes, so we need to configure the site address. There’s no way to select “all sites,” but this is a broad search parameter since a site could already have a lot of activity. If you want more sites, you need to replicate the trigger to consider all the sites you need.

Library Name

Within sites, there are multiple libraries, so we need to indicate what library we want. As before, we cannot have an “all libraries” filter, so if you have a lot of libraries, you need to duplicate the trigger for all of them.

Usage

Now that we have the site and library name configured, let’s see how to use it. First, let’s create a Flow with a trigger named “Approve Contract” (the name will be important later).

Now that we have a Flow with SharePoint “For a selected” trigger, let’s go to the SharePoint document library and see how to trigger the automation.

SharePoint did all the work in the backend, and it’s already displaying the Flow for us to run. No configuration is needed on the SharePoint side.

When you run, if it’s the first time, you may need to configure/confirm the connections.

After this, the Flow will trigger on Power Automate.

Outputs

The trigger returns a lot of information in a JSON format, although the conversion from JSON is done automatically for you. Here’s an example:

{
    "headers": {
        ...
    },
    "body": {
        "entity": {
            "ID": 4,
            "itemUrl": "https://manueltgomescom.sharepoint.com/sites/Test/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc=%7B5f82b4aa-827d-4c7d-b607-963b0542e7f7%7D&action=edit&uid=%3c139851-251a-4ee0-907f-24dcfd5c29c1%7D&ListItemId=4&ListId=%ed455c5b-349d-4c44-bc20-ec45ce49c417%7D&odsp=1&env=prod",
            "fileName": "Test Document.docx",
            "FileId": "4"
        }
    }
}

Notice that we only got the information about the file, not the file itself. Other triggers like SharePoint’s “When a file is created (properties only)” trigger, for example, will return the file metadata that we can use, but the SharePoint “For a selected file” will return the item ID. We can then use that ID and use the “Get File Metadata Action” action to get the file metadata for the file to parse.

Limitations

If you build the Flows in the “My Flows” section, only you will see them in SharePoint. This is not a limitation per se, but it’s something that you should be aware of. If you want other users to see the Flow, you need to share it with them like this:

Add the names or emails:

The Flow will not show in their SharePoint document library.

Recommendations

Here are some things to keep in mind.

Don’t use this for synchronization

I see many questions regarding synchronization between SharePoint document libraries, and SharePoint “For a selected file“ trigger is an excellent target to catch files that need replication. But I would strongly advise you not to do it. Synchronization of files is an amazingly complex topic in computer science, and we are all super when something doesn’t synchronize properly. If the trigger fails, data will be out of sync, and Power Automate won’t rerun it. If the data is changed on the destination folder, you already have a problem that will only worsen over time.

Name it correctly

The name is super important since we need to provide context for what we will do with the file. Keeping the name “For a selected file” won’t give any helpful context. Always build the name so that other people can understand what you are using without opening the action and checking the details.

Additional contracts to the name

Since you’ll be seeing the flow’s name in SharePoint, and it’s your only clue as to what it will do to the selected item, it’s essential o keep the names as straightforward as possible.

In this example, “Request sign-off” is not clear enough. Request sign-off of what? What will happen? Name it so that, even with only a few characters, people will know what happens when they trigger the automation.

Finally, this is the only exception to not using environment clues like “PROD” in the name. Space in SharePoint is limited; if the name is too long, it may be truncated.

Always add a comment

Adding a comment will also help avoid mistakes. Indicate what you’re expecting, why the Flow should be triggered, and what the data will be used. It’s essential to add comments when limiting the trigger with some custom rulessince these are not prominent in the UI, and people may get confused as to why the Flow doesn’t trigger when it’s simply a rule preventing it from doing so. It’s essential to enable faster debugging when something goes wrong.

Finally, let people know why you’re choosing the parameters you configured. For example, why do you select that folder if you have a folder defined? It may make sense now, but not in a few months.

An automated trigger is better than a scheduled one

Sometimes people are tempted to use scheduled triggers that pool the resources once in a while. This way, they can control when the information is fetched and save many Power Automate “triggers” if their quota is low. However, even if it isn’t, it may be more efficient to do batch tasks than once by one. I understand, and in some cases, I can agree, but it brings a lot of difficulties in the process. For example, you may need to keep track of what changed from the last run until this one so that some things may get lost. Also, you’re forcing something to happen periodically, even if there’s no data.

I always recommend using these “automatic” triggers instead, where they trigger one by one, but only when there’s data, so you’re always sure you get something to do. Also, debugging triggers that parse a single data point instead of multiple simultaneously is much easier. If something fails on one, then you can fix the Flow and repeat the process. But while parsing multiple ones, things can get a lot harder.

Back to the Power Automate Trigger Reference.

Photo by Brienne Hong on Unsplash

 

I have to admit that this is a strange trigger because it mixes items and files, and it doesn’t have a “when created” counterpart. It can be helpful depending on your workflow, so today, we’ll explore the “When an item or a file is modified” trigger and how to take advantage of it.

Where to find it?

To find it, search for the “When an item or a file is modified” trigger or go to “Standard”.

Select “SharePoint”.

Pick the “When an item or a file is modified” trigger.

Here’s what it looks like.

There are some advanced options that you can explore. To add them, press here:

Here’s what it looks like with the options expanded:

Let’s look at the fields and how we can configure them.

Fields

There are a few fields to configure so that you can take advantage of them.

Site address

We need a place to search for changes, so we need to configure the site address. There’s no way to select “all sites,” but this is a broad search parameter since a site could already have a lot of activity. If you want more sites, you need to replicate the trigger to consider all the sites you need.

List or Library Name

Within sites, there are multiple libraries, so we need to indicate what library we want. As before, we cannot have an “all libraries” filter, so if you have a lot of libraries, you need to duplicate the trigger for all of them.

It will also display all the lists on the site; as for the document libraries, you cannot have an “all lists” choice.

Folder

This one is optional and should be used wisely. If we want to get changes from all files, by all means, keep it empty, but it’s always good to limit a bit the number of Flows that we trigger. If you can have the trigger look for folders down the line, it will help you:

1. Having fewer exceptions to parse and reducing the number of folders also limits the number of types of files that you need to look at.
2. Fewer triggers, meaning that you keep your Power Automate usage under control. Remember that triggers are not unlimited, so keeping them controlled will go a long way to avoid having limitation issues in the future.

Limit Columns by View

You can limit the columns that you want to be returned by defining a view in SharePoint, and by doing so, you can speed up your Flow because it will only return a smaller subset of data. But remember that it won’t consider any filters you have defined in the view. As the name indicates, it will only look at the columns in the view, not the data, so it will always return changes to files and items that may not be visible in your view.

Usage

Here’s an example of a document library I created, and we want to check changes to those files.

Since we leave the folder field empty, Power Automate will look at all files in the document library.

What is a modification?

But to understand when the trigger will fire, we need to understand what is a “modification”. A “modification” is when you change the data associated with the item’s metadata and not the file itself. Adding more text to a word file is not a change.

When you see a document library, you’ll notice that the folder structure looks much like the item structure, and that’s for a good reason. They are the same, but since they are different types, SharePoint displays them in a way that makes sense to the user.

Here’s an example of the document library in the example above:

We even have the “+ Add column” option as we have on the list item view.

This is because the document library is a view behind the scenes, meaning we can add additional items to a list, so let’s add a new column called “Status” to test.

Now let’s edit the value. When you’re a list item, you will click on the row, but since this is a file, it will open the file itself and not its properties. You need to do the following:

You’ll notice that we’re not touching the file. We’re not editing the file itself. We’re editing the list item, in this case, a file, because it’s a document library. And this is when the trigger will fire because there was a change to the file.

So the “When an item or a file is modified” trigger will fire when you edit the fields in the list regardless of their type (item or file). I know it’s not intuitive since we think modifying a file by editing it, but this is not how this trigger works.

If you select the folder ensure it is in the document library

Finally, be careful when selecting the folder in case you need it. When you choose a document library, the UI won’t filter the folder list to the ones inside that library and will always list for the site. For example:

Be sure to pick folders inside the document library because Power Automate won’t return an error. The Flow won’t fire because it’s impossible for the file to be in two folders simultaneously.

Outputs

The “When an item or a file is modified” trigger outputs depend on the parameters you pick. For example, in the case above, we have a column “Status”, so the trigger will return it:

But if we pick a list, the UI will adapt and provide the columns for that list.

Non-intuitive behaviors

I mentioned above, but the most non-intuitive behavior for the “When an item or a file is modified” trigger is that the files could be modified (for example, adding a new row in an Excel file). Still, the trigger won’t consider it as a “modification”. It will only consider modifications when you change the columns associated with that document library, as it was a “simple” list.

Limitations

You can’t pick “all document libraries”, so you always have to pick a list or a document library from the list. It’s not really a limitation since it’s a good compromise, but if you have multiple document libraries, you need to replicate the Flow for each document library.

Recommendations

Here are some things to keep in mind.

Don’t use this for synchronization

I see many questions regarding synchronization between SharePoint lists, and the “When an item or a file is modified“ trigger is an excellent target to catch items that need replication. But I would strongly advise you not to do it. Synchronization of items is an amazingly complex topic in computer science, and we are all super when something doesn’t synchronize properly. If the trigger fails, data will be out of sync, and Power Automate won’t rerun it. If the data is changed on the destination list, you already have a problem that will only worsen over time.

Name it correctly

The name is super important since the trigger has a lot of configurations. We should name it, so it’s clear what information we’re getting and why. Always build the name so that other people can understand what you are using without opening the action and checking the details.

Always add a comment

Adding a comment will also help avoid mistakes. Indicate what you’re expecting, why the Flow should be triggered, and what the data will be used. It’s essential to add comments when limiting the trigger with some custom rulessince these are not prominent in the UI, and people may get confused as to why the Flow doesn’t trigger when it’s simply a rule preventing it from doing so. It’s essential to enable faster debugging when something goes wrong.

Finally, let people know why you’re choosing the parameters you configured. For example, why do you select that folder if you have a folder defined? It may make sense now, but not in a few months.

An automated trigger is better than a scheduled one.

Sometimes people are tempted to use scheduled triggers that pool the resources once in a while. This way, they can control when the information is fetched and save much Power Automate “triggers” if their quota is low. However, even if it isn’t, it may be more efficient to do batch tasks than once by one. I understand, and in some cases, I can agree, but it brings a lot of difficulties in the process. For example, you may need to keep track of what changed from the last run until this one so that some things may get lost. Also, you’re forcing something to happen periodically, even if there’s no data.

I always recommend using these “automatic” triggers instead, where they trigger one by one, but only when there’s data, so you’re always sure you get something to do. Also, debugging triggers that parse a single data point instead of multiple simultaneously is much easier. If something fails on one, then you can fix the Flow and repeat the process. But while parsing multiple ones, things can get a lot harder.

Back to the Power Automate Trigger Reference.

Photo by Christopher Bill on Unsplash

 

SharePoint’s lists are excellent for keeping data, but one accidental delete could generate a lot of headaches, especially if you don’t notice it. That’s why Microsoft developed the “When an item is deleted” trigger, where you can define Flows that do actions when an item is deleted, like a notification to someone to check the “Recycle bin” and see if the item should have been deleted or not.

Let’s check how to take advantage of SharePoint’s “When an item is deleted” trigger.

Where to find it?

To find it, you can search for the “When an item is deleted” trigger or go to “Standard”:

Select “SharePoint”:

Pick the “When an item is deleted” trigger.

Here’s what it looks like.

Usage

It’s pretty easy to configure. You select the site and the list you want to check, and that’s it. For example, if we want to check our “Test Users” list, we’ll do the following:

It will trigger as soon as an item is deleted, but I want to highlight the outputs of this trigger. It won’t return the elements of the item, so you won’t have access to all columns like in the “When an item is created or modified” trigger, for example. You will get the following information:

It makes sense to return this data since the trigger will fire after the item is deleted, so it won’t have access to its information. It will provide information about the deletion, like who deleted it and when.

Non-intuitive behaviors

As mentioned above, not returning all list elements could be considered a non-intuitive behavior. Still, there’s another one I would like to highlight concerning the data returned.

As you can see above, you have the “Is Folder” that is kind of strange on a list, right? We’re dealing with list items, not folders and files, but there’s the indication of “Is Folder”. This is because you can add folders to a list to organize your items. I go into a lot of detail here , so take a look if you want to learn how to use them.

Finally, there’s the possibility to configure SharePoint to keep all changes to the list items. If you don’t know how to do it, check my article on SharePoint’s best practices in the section “Versions”. We can take advantage of this version history and use the “Send an HTTP request to SharePoint “ action to get it. If you don’t know how to do it, here’s an article.

The issue with this is that you won’t be able to do it. You’ll get the following error message:

Item does not exist. It may have been deleted by another user.

Again, the trigger will fire after is deleted, so you won’t have access to its elements unless you manually restore it from the “Recycle Bin”. However, one could consider a “deletion” as a change to the item’s status and worth keeping a version mention of it, but I can understand why Microsoft chose this behavior.

Limitations

The “When an item is deleted” trigger can only be used by site collection admins of the site where the list is located, meaning that if you’re not a site admin, this trigger won’t fire, so keep this in mind in case you’re having issues with the trigger.

Recommendations

Here are some things to keep in mind.

Don’t use this for synchronization

I see many questions regarding synchronization between SharePoint lists, and the “When an item is deleted“ trigger could be an excellent target to catch items that need deleting. But I would strongly advise you not to do it. Synchronization of items is an amazingly complex topic in computer science, and we are all super when something doesn’t synchronize properly. If the trigger fails, data will be out of sync, and Power Automate won’t rerun it. If the data is changed on the destination list, you already have a problem that will only worsen over time.

Name it correctly

The name is super important since the trigger can be used on any list you can access. Always build the name so that other people can understand what you are using without opening the action and checking the details.

Always add a comment

Adding a comment will also help avoid mistakes. Indicate what you’re expecting, why the Flow should be triggered, and what the data will be used. It’s essential to add comments when limiting the trigger with some custom rulessince these are not prominent in the UI, and people may get confused as to why the Flow doesn’t trigger when it’s simply a rule preventing it from doing so. It’s essential to enable faster debugging when something goes wrong.

Finally, let people know why you’re choosing the parameters you configured. For example, why do you select that folder if you have a folder defined? It may make sense now, but not in a few months.

An automated trigger is better than a scheduled one

Sometimes people are tempted to use scheduled triggers that pool the resources once in a while. This way, they can control when the information is fetched and save much Power Automate “triggers” if their quota is low. However, even if it isn’t, it may be more efficient to do batch tasks than once by one. I understand, and in some cases, I can agree, but it brings a lot of difficulties in the process. For example, you may need to keep track of what changed from the last run until this one so that some things may get lost. Also, you’re forcing something to happen periodically, even if there’s no data.

I always recommend using these “automatic” triggers instead, where they trigger one by one, but only when there’s data, so you’re always sure you get something to do. Also, debugging triggers that parse a single data point instead of multiple simultaneously is much easier. If something fails on one, then you can fix the Flow and repeat the process. But while parsing multiple ones, things can get a lot harder.

Back to the Power Automate Trigger Reference.

Photo by Gareth Harper on Unsplash