Create Custom ID using SharePoint Update Item?

[Anonymous]

Hello,  I'd like to create a custom ID (REQ01000 for example) and have tried using the 'Update Item' for SharePoint.   I can put in a prefix and use the dynamic content to add the internal ID number.   This will concatonate to make REQ1,  REQ2 and such.    However,  I would like to add 1000 to the ID number to have it evaluate to REQ1001,  REQ1002 and so on.   I've not found any documentation showing what you can do via update item (other than put in a literal value or a 'dynamic' value which is a current field value elsewhere).

Can you use expressions/formulas in the "Update Item"?    If so,  where is a syntax reference or samples?

[v-monli-msft]

Hi Jerry,

No, you cannot use expressions/formulas in the ID field of "SharePoint - Update Item" action. You can only use the exsiting dynamic content.

Yet you could post this idea in the Flow Ideas forum, so it might be considered for future releases.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/idb-p/FlowIdeas

Regards,

Mona

[Seamunkee]

Hi Mona,

How would I go about using Flow to create an unique ID for a item in SharePoint? My scenario is that I have a Forms survey and I have a Flow setup to capture the responses in a SharePoint list. I'd like to assign each entry a unique ID (with prefix BI-19##), but I can't info on how to do this.

Thanks

Terek

[MattWeston365]

Hi @Seamunkee, you could concatenate a string and then place that into a Text field in SharePoint. The expression that you would use would look something like this:

concat('BI','-','19','XX')

The XX could be replaced by whatever you wanted to make it unique, e.g. you could use the ID dynamic content and place that in there, so that you would have items with:
BI-191

BI-192 etc

As stated by @v-monli-msft you can't override the ID field of the list item in SharePoint as this is sytem generated. So as long as you have another field created e.g. Item Ref, then you can place this into that field and that would act as your unique ID.

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@MattWeston365

[Seamunkee]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the response, but I'm still having trouble creating an ID. The items in my list are from a survey and all of the columns are the questions, and using dynamic content would just be the questions themselves. So my problem is figuring out a way to assign a number to them. The concatenate string tip you gave is super helpful but I'm at a loss at trying to give them an actual number. I tried using the ID SharePoint assigns the item to concat off of, but no joy. Is there an expression I could use to count the number of items in the list and then using that to concat a unique ID?

[MattWeston365]

Hi @Seamunkee 

Each time we create an item within the SharePoint list it will automatically be assigned a unique ID number. This will start with 1 and will auto-increment by 1 each time. You could take this ID and use that in your concat, however you'd need to create the list item first.

So your flow would basically be :

Create the list Item

Update the list item - update the ID field with the ID dynamic text which you get back from the Create

I hope that makes sense.

If you have found this post useful, please give it a thumbs up. If it has answered your question, please accept it as the solution so others can benefit.

@MattWeston365

[Seamunkee]

Thanks Matt!

One question would I use "current item" as the ID or the List item ID? Here's what my Flow looks like at the moment.

[MattWeston365]

You would use the ID (list item ID) from your Create Item action. So you concatenate expressions will look like this:

concat('BI','-','19',body('Create_item')?['ID'])

If you have found this post useful, please give it a thumbs up. If it has answered your question, please accept it as the solution so others can benefit.

@MattWeston365