Post news to SharePoint with choice column assigned

[NiclasOlsson]

Hi,

I think I've managed to get a flow working that posts news posts to a SharePoint site. It's a triggered flow, and the RSS feed has not been updated since I created the flow, so I'm not entirely sure it's working. However, I would like the posts to be assigned a tag according to the choice column I created. The overall column name is "NewsCategory" and the two choices now are "general" and "sustainability". Is there a way to automatically assign new posts with "sustainability"?

If it is possible, where would I put the code for assigning choice column and what would the code look like? In the "Send an HTTP request to SharePoint", the current code is:

:

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @NiclasOlsson,

I see you are creating a news link instead of a news post. As far as I am aware you cannot add the value at creation. 

As a workaround you can retrieve the item from the library and update it afterwards.

Below is an example of that approach.

This example uses the item id of the news link in the Site Pages library to update the NewsCategory field with the validateUpdateListItem method.

Uri:

_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Site%20Pages')/items(@{body('Send_an_HTTP_request_to_SharePoint')['Id']})/validateUpdateListItem

{
"formValues": [ 
  { "FieldName": "NewsCategory", 
    "FieldValue": "Sustainability" } 
],
"bNewDocumentUpdate": false
}

[NiclasOlsson]

Thank you, @Expiscornovus,

I think your solution might work. However, I ran into another problem.

The reason I wanted to assign a certain category was so that I could post directly to the Sharepoint site (site A) where the news feed should be. Unfortunately, it's a site where there are many different pages for different purposes, and posting directly to it without any filtering metadata would mean that any news feed on any page on that site would get all news items, also those only relevant to one of the pages. My previous workaround was to post it to another sharepoint site (site B) first, and then fetch the news feed from site B to site A where I wanted to have it in the first place. The problem with that was that I had to set more generous permissions for site B than it should have in order for everyone who has access to site A to be able to see the news feed. Sorry if this is too confusing, but what all of this boils down to is this:
Site A is a Communication Site and site B i a Teams site, and it seems like they work differently in relation to Power Automate. My flow works with site B, but for site A I get the following error message:

Cannot find resource for the request sitepages (this might not be entirely correct, since I translated it from Swedish).
clientRequestId: bdfcf777-3337-4673-8cde-ddc7f4e07307
serviceRequestId: 1d855ba0-e00c-4000-a616-b84258961061

Any idea how to solve this?

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @NiclasOlsson,

Can you share a screenshot of the flow setup? This might help troubleshooting this second error.

[NiclasOlsson]

Thanks again, @Expiscornovus, for taking the time to look at it.

Flow setup:

Raw inputs of failed flow:

{

    "host": {

        "connectionReferenceName": "shared_sharepointonline",

        "operationId": "HttpRequest"

    },

    "parameters": {

        "dataset": "https://gunet.sharepoint.com/sites/<SITE NAME>",

        "parameters/method": "POST",

        "parameters/uri": "/_api/web/sitepages/pages/reposts",

        "parameters/headers": {

            "content-type": "application/json",

            "odata=verbose": "",

            "charset=utf-8\naccept": "application/json"

        },

        "parameters/body": "{\n\"BannerImageUrl\":\"\",\n\"Description\":\"feedEtt åskoväder i Malung har orsakat att trottoarer och parkeringar är\növersvämmade i centrala Malung. Utanför biblioteket har det varit vatten ända\nupp vid tröskeln. – Det är som en sjö utanför, säger Jenny Oskarsson som jobbar\npå bibiloteket.\",\n\"IsBannerImageUrlExternal\": true,\n\"OriginalSourceUrl\":\"https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/dalarna/oversvamning-i-centrala-malung-det-ar-en-sjo-utanfor\",\n\"Title\":\"Översvämning i centrala Malung – ”Det är en sjö utanför”\"\n}"

    }

}

Raw outputs of failed flow:

{

    "statusCode": 404,

    "headers": {

        "Pragma": "no-cache",

        "Cache-Control": "no-store, no-cache",

        "Set-Cookie": "ARRAffinity=eac69d9633b62a80172d43feba694263b4d9fccb8b9d953b364b8fc058f6e946;Path=/;HttpOnly;Secure;Domain=sharepointonline-we.azconn-we-003.p.azurewebsites.net,ARRAffinitySameSite=eac69d9633b62a80172d43feba694263b4d9fccb8b9d953b364b8fc058f6e946;Path=/;HttpOnly;SameSite=None;Secure;Domain=sharepointonline-we.azconn-we-003.p.azurewebsites.net",

        "x-ms-request-id": "c28f5ba0-e0fb-4000-e03f-d9c0219ee25e",

        "Strict-Transport-Security": "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains",

        "X-Content-Type-Options": "nosniff",

        "X-Frame-Options": "DENY",

        "Timing-Allow-Origin": "*",

        "x-ms-apihub-cached-response": "false",

        "x-ms-apihub-obo": "true",

        "Date": "Tue, 16 Aug 2022 13:19:41 GMT",

        "Content-Length": "419",

        "Content-Type": "application/json",

        "Expires": "-1"

    },

    "body": {

        "status": 404,

        "message": "Det går inte att hitta resursen för begäran sitepages.\r\nclientRequestId: e0df3066-0c67-4130-bd7c-0e9513d727e5\r\nserviceRequestId: c28f5ba0-e0fb-4000-e03f-d9c0219ee25e",

        "source": "https://gunet.sharepoint.com/sites/<SITE NAME>/_api/web/sitepages/pages/reposts",

        "errors": [

            "-1",

            "Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ResourceNotFoundException"

        ]

    }

}

[NiclasOlsson]

Hi again,

Since the only place where "sitepages" is mentioned is in the uri, my guess is that the API works differently with SharePoint communication sites, as apposed to Teams sites. I've been trying to find any information on this, but no guide acknowledges any such difference. 

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @NiclasOlsson,

In my test my URI was slightly different. Maybe you could try the uri without the web part of it?

[NiclasOlsson]

Thanks @Expiscornovus, that actually solved that problem. My hunch was right (all I've got since I'm more than a beginner at this...).

Now, the second HTTP request failed though.
Error message:

Unable to process template language expressions in action 'Send_an_HTTP_request_to_SharePoint_2' inputs at line '0' and column '0': 'The template language expression 'body('Send_an_HTTP_request_to_SharePoint')['Id']' cannot be evaluated because property 'Id' doesn't exist, available properties are 'd'. Please see https://aka.ms/logicexpressions for usage details.'.

I assume the Id is to update the right page, but I don't get how Id relates to anything earlier in the flow. Could I instead use "Feed title" or something?

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @NiclasOlsson,

Did you use the same headers in the first request as in my example. application/json or application/json;odata=verbose can make a huge difference for what you will get in your output 😁

[NiclasOlsson]

@Expiscornovus 

I think you can see that in the screenshots above also, but I'll include it here as well:

 

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @NiclasOlsson,

Sorry, I missed that.

It looks like the structure of your outputs is a bit different to mine. Can you share the raw outputs of that flow run of the reposts action?

Can you try something like below as well?

body('Send_an_HTTP_request_to_SharePoint')['d']['Id']

[NiclasOlsson]

@Expiscornovus 

Unfortunately, the error message for the second HTTP request does not allow me to get the raw outputs. I only get the error message I posted earlier.

I changed the items() according to your suggestion, adding @ and {}. Then I got a new error message:

The list Site Pages cannot be found on the website with the address https://gunet.sharepoint.com/sites/<site name>.
clientRequestId: cfbd9570-d5ce-4d40-bb3e-751ca4aeeb5d
serviceRequestId: 76d85ba0-80b1-4000-d34a-ddd37ed3b8db

Raw outputs:

{

    "host": {

        "connectionReferenceName": "shared_sharepointonline",

        "operationId": "HttpRequest"

    },

    "parameters": {

        "dataset": "https://gunet.sharepoint.com/sites/<site name>",

        "parameters/method": "POST",

        "parameters/uri": "_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Site%20Pages')/items(63)/validateUpdateListItem",

        "parameters/headers": {

            "Accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",

            "Content-Type": "application/json;odata=verbose"

        },

        "parameters/body": "{\n\"formValues\": [ \n  { \"FieldName\": \"NewsCategory\", \n    \"FieldValue\": \"sustainability\" } \n],\n\"bNewDocumentUpdate\": false\n}"

    }

}

To add insult to injury, I also found that news link is not at all what I want. I wasn't able to see what it looked like until I got the first HTTP request working. But the page with the link has an ugly image preview with nothing (for obvious reasons) and all the text is grayed out. I, therefore, think I need to go back to square one and try to figure out how to get a news post working instead. Maybe that also enables me to add the correct category straight away also...

I appreciate all the help you've given me, but it is too much to ask of you to figure out the new approach as well.

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @NiclasOlsson,

I have created several flows with that other approach. I don't mind helping out a bit more 😉

For example I have blogged about creating, saving and publishing a news post via Power Automate in this article:

https://www.expiscornovus.com/2022/01/15/yammer-topics-tag-trigger/

Only difference is that I was using a Yammer tag as a trigger and Yammer content. But it might be useful for you to look at those specific Send an HTTP request actions 🙂

[NiclasOlsson]

@Expiscornovus 

I have tried to follow many different tutorials and examples, but I am too new to this to figure out what I need to change to make it work. A lot of them seem overly-complicated, which is sometimes due to their trying to solve a slightly different problem. 

This is one I've tried to adapt to my needs: Generate-SharePoint-News-Posts-using-WHO-RSS-Feed-using-Power-Automate/README.md at master · myvspar...

But fetching the metadata in the HTTP request afterwards fails, as well as a few other error messages in the Flow checker. Otherwise, it seems like a good setup, since it allows me to have the template include the correct categorization. But, again, there are too many steps where things go wrong and I know too little to correct it. 

This is another one: https://youtu.be/JzjBXYZIPd8

I've never gotten this to work either.

Your first solution, for news link, would be fine if I could get it to work. However, I noticed that the code in the body didn't post, but this was easily added with 

"ShouldSaveAsDraft": false,

However, I guess I would have to have a republish after it has been assigned the correct category in the second HTTP request either way. Maybe that is what that last bit of code in the second request does, only I've never gotten it to work...

I feel like there are too many things to figure out now, and trying to explain everything in a new post seems much too ineffective. So, it's never too late to give up!