SharePoint document Library refresh

[carlilelance]

Is there a way to trigger a refresh on a SharePoint document library? 

I have a flow that creates an Excel document in a SharePoint document library and populates it with column headers and rows of data. Creating a document through flow doesn't seem to trigger a refresh of the document library. This means the only way I know of seeing the newly created document is through a manual page refresh by the user. Another question already states that you cannot refresh a SharePoint page using flow. Is there a way to trigger a refresh on a SharePoint document library? 

[eliotcole · Accepted solution]

Hi, @carlilelance, there is not a way to trigger that, no, because it is actually refreshing in the background.

The document IS updated and made, but they may not see it ... immediately. It will refresh in time ... it's just set to a reasonable level so as not to overload people's browser sessions or apps.

The way to work around this is to send the user a notification to say that the item is ready and either link directly to it, or to tell them to tap F5 or pull down on their mobile app (or whatever refreshes that).

[carlilelance]

What is the reasonable level? I came back two hours later, to test the refresh, and my document still didn't show up without a manual page refresh. Normally when you create a document the manual way, it appears acceptably quick. There must be something on the control that doesn't trigger when you use power automate to create a document vs. doing it manually. 😞

[eliotcole]

Ah, I see what you mean. Well, I'm not the person that codes it, so unfortunately I couldn't tell you.

Maybe ... just maybe ... there's a hack to be made, here.

You could try adding a column to the library, called 'nowt' (which I think should be visible), and then when ever you add a file to the library with this process, update the 'nowt' column for item 1 in the library (or get files, and update the oldest one there) with a guid() expression. Maybe that'll force it as it's updating a list item that should be current on the screen.