Trigger a flow on a date value from a Sharepoint list

[UB400]

I have a Sharepoint list from which I need to send out alert e-mails on the date value of one of the columns. For example I need to send an e-mail alerting a group of Users of an upcoming event. The trigger would be Today's Date = value in a Sharepoint Column.

Looking at Triggers for Sharepoint, most of the Triggers I see are related to creating/editing items, I don't see how to trigger based on a value in a Column.

Thanks, any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

[v-yamao-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi UB400,

As you could see on the flow, currently we only support triggers when a file is created/modified and when an item is created/modified.
There is no trigger based on a value in a column can be used.

Please consider to submit an idea at Flow Ideas Forum so it might be considered into future releases, I will also collect and report it from my side.
https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/idb-p/FlowIdeas

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[UB400]

@v-yamao-msft Thanks, I'll do as you suggested. Looking at examples on the Flow site, i noticed that the current work-a-round is to use recurrence to check the value and then trigger accordingly.

I'm going to give that a try and see how it works out.

[DAGEM]

@UB400Could you provide link for work around please? I'm trying to get emails automatically sent out when test equipment has calibration due. All test equipment is stored on a Sharepoint List.

[UB400]

@DAGEM

Most important thing to remember is that Flow uses UTC format for dates, so you need to use "Compose" to format the dates (Today's date and the Alert Date) to format the dates in UTC

So essentially what your Flow needs to do is as follows:

1. Use the Recurrence trigger to start the Trigger, you can set this to once a day or as frequently as you like

2. Get Today's date

3. Get Items from your Sharepoint list

4. Do an Apply to Each, so that you can Format the Alert date from Sharepoint into UTC, then Compare to Today's Date

5. "If" to define your action where the Alert Date = Today's Date

6. The action to take i.e. Send e-mail etc. if the above value is true

See the steps below, if anything is unclear, feel free to ask, I wanted to add Screen Shots but you can't upload images, you can only link to them from an online Host.

Your Flow needs to be started by the "Recurrence" Trigger, so that's the first step

Next Create  Compose Step to get today's date the formula is 

utcnow('dd-MM-yyyy')

Next Create a Step to "Get Items from your Sharepoint List"

Next Step Do an "Apply to each"

Next Step is again a "Compose" this time to format the date from your Alert date in Sharepoint, Formula I used is 

formatdatetime(items('Apply_to_each')?['AlertDate'] ,'dd-MM-yyyy')

You then basically compare the values from the Compose with Today's date and the Compose value of the Alert Date retrieved from Sharepoint

Followed by If Date Today = Alert Date, do action

[Crolle]

Can you make a screenshot of that flow?

[DAGEM]

@UB400Many thanks.

As I used the 'select date' (i.e. calendar) option in my list the date is actually formatted 'yyyy-MM-dd'. This is strange because it's displayed 'MM-dd-yyyy' but I sent an email to myself using Dynamic option of my 'DateCalibrationDue' item and it showed me the actual format is 'yyyy-MM-dd' so I guess sharepoint must format the date before displaying it on my sharepoint list.

I wanted to check if a date was due in the next 14 days so the compose (which I named 'CalibrationWarningPeriod') I used was: addDays(utcNow(),14,'yyyy-MM-dd')

My condition was: @greaterOrEquals(outputs('CalibrationWarningPeriod'), items('Apply_to_each')?['Date_x0020_Calibration_x0020_Due'])

Anyway, I have solved it now, so thanks again for your help.

[Crolle]

Do you have a picture of your flow?

[DAGEM]

[Crolle]

Unable to process mall expression for action Condition_2 in row 1 in column 2200. The mall function greaterOrEquals expects exactly two parameters for matching types. The function was called with the Null and String values ​​that do not match.

[DAGEM]

Try:

addDays(utcNow(),14,'yyyy-MM-dd')

[simonjhudson]

Good discussion guys.

Big watch out, however, is that SharePoint still does large list throttling. If your list has over 5000 items then you need to do a multi-batch pull of all the items before you can apply the logic.

It's a pain that only kicks in with big lists, but a real watch out as you won't know that it isn't working on items in the 5000+ range

[ArtW]

I too am looking for a way for a  Flow to begin based on a date in SharePoint.

I want to create a flow that sends an email to a specific person based on an upcoming date within SharePoint.

We have a SharePoint page with11 columns of which one says "period of performance". As an example: there are two dates in the Period of Performance column; let's say, "1/1/2019 - 1/31/2020". I'd like to create a Flow that will automatically send an email to the owner of the task up to 6 months prior to the final date telling him the task will end in 6 months. 

Something like this; On June 30, 2019, an automatic email is sent saying - "John Doe, Task DO 1234 will be ending 1/31/2020 you have upcoming actions.

[gamoraes]

Hi @UB400

I'm very happy to hear that you did it!

I closed this discussion, but feel free to question and / or consider other answers as essential for solving your problem!

Best Regards,

Gustavo Moraes

[gamoraes]

Hey @ArtW, can you create a new thread please?

if you can mark me and i will send you some examples that can resolve this!

Best Regards,

Gustavo Moraes

[ArtW]

I want to create a flow that sends an email to a specific person based on an upcoming date within SharePoint.

We have a SharePoint page with11 columns of which one says "period of performance". As an example: there are two dates in the Period of Performance column; let's say, "1/1/2019 - 1/31/2020". I'd like to create a Flow that will automatically send an email to the owner of the task up to 6 months prior to the final date telling him the task will end in 6 months. 

Something like this; On June 30, 2019, an automatic email is sent saying - "John Doe, Task DO 1234 will be ending 1/31/2020 you have upcoming actions.

I'm not sure if the photo will show up. Unfortunately, the dates are in the same field and we may need to separate them.  Using the attached photo, the circled date is 12/27/2019 and the owner is David H. We ultimately want a flow that will check the dated once a month and if it finds a date 6 months out to automatically send an email to the owner that the project will close in 6 months. In this case, since the project closes December 27, have an email sent out sometime in June - July to David that his project is closing in 6 months