SharePoint List: Create a new item for each individual assigned in the parent item

[cashtidwell]

Hello, 

I need a new item created for each individual assigned in the parent item. 

Example: I'm a manager and I need to assign the same task for 3 of my employees --> I create a task and add each of these employee names in the assigned individual column/field --> I click save --> The flow would create 3 new separate items that are assigned to each one of the individuals entered into the assigned individuals column of the parent item. 

I can't figure out how to have a separate item be created for each of the individuals that I enter. Thank you in advance!

[v-duann-msft]

Hi @cashtidwell 

Thank you for posting.

According to your description, you would like to separate multi-select value to several individual item. If any misunderstanding, please kindly let me know.

If that’s the case, we can append all category values into the array. Then use length() function to get the length of the array to check number, then use Switch action guide to the corresponding Update item branch.

This is my parent list (Employee is person column with multi-select enabled):

Here is the flow overview:

Flow in detail:

length(variables('persons'))

In switch (The total amount of cases is depend on your max amount employees you select within one field)

For example, I add three people at most in one field in parent list. Thus, I create three cases within switch.

After testing, I’m able to get separate item for each employee as below:

One more tip, we can only choose another list to store separated items. Otherwise the flow will stuck in looping.

Hope the content above may help you.

Best regards,

Anna

[cashtidwell]

Thank you!

In order to prevent looping, is there somewhere I can apply a condition that if a field in the parent item "Created by flow" = No, then this flow would run. And then in the flow above update the child item to change "Created by flow" = Yes. This way the newly created child items would loop? 

[cashtidwell]

I was able to create your flow successfully, but you are right... the flow looped infinitely. I've created a separate list where the parent item can be created, but how would I modify the flow to create the children items in the other list? 

I tried updating my flow by changing the When Item is Created site/list to the new parent list & left the create new item under Switch as the original list. When I created the new item in the parent list, the flow did not trigger

[v-duann-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @cashtidwell 

Thank you for your attempts. Glad to hear the flow works for you.

As I known, it’s not possible to create child list within SharePoint. So we should use prepare two different lists for your scenario. One is used to trigger and another is used to store separate items.

So please help to create another list manually with same column names as your parent list. If you can go back to my first response, you will find I totally have two list within flow. One is < Multi-select to individual item>, and another one is <Multi-select to individual item-2>.

Hope it’s clear to you.

Best regards,

Anna

[cashtidwell]

Anna, I figured it out. I had to recreate a new flow and choose the child list after the switch function. For some reason, when i modified the original flow by changing the list that the children items would be created in, the flow didn't execute but showed no errors either. Once I created a new flow with these changes, the flow worked. Thank you!