Fill empty column with content from another sharepoint list

[Fnaud]

Hi, 

I am fairly new to power automate but I will try to explain my situation as best as I can:

I have two sharepoint list;

-list A is a list of entries associated to employees (fact table) to which a new column has been added to improve analysis.

-list B is the employee dimension table which has the reference to the new column that is added to list A.

Since list A already has over 200 entries, I wanted to see if there was a way to fill the new column with a flow.  

The flow would find the associated value in list B where the employeeID is the same in both lists. 

I have searched online but couldn't find a solution that works in my case since my list A is already populated.

Help would be greatly appreciated

[v-yueyun-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi , @Fnaud 

Accoridng to your description, You have ListA and ListB, ListA is the fact table, ListB is the dimension table, you want to create a Column in ListA, bind the corresponding records in ListB. I recommend that you create a LookUp type column.

So, this is my test two Lists in my SharePoint:

And this is my flow:

(1)The first Get Items is to get the Items in the two Lists:

(2)The “Apply to each ” action (Note:  the “Apply to each 2 ” action is inner in the “Apply to each ” action ;  And the “Title” column is the logic name for the “EmployeeID” column, you can modify it in your side).

items('Apply_to_each_2')?['ID']

items('Apply_to_each')?['ID']

(3)The result is as follows in “ListA”:

If I misunderstand what you mean, you can describe your needs and your expected outcomes in detail so that we can better help you.

Best Regards,

Yueyun Zhang

[Fnaud]

Hi @v-yueyun-msft ,

thank you for taking the time to help me.

I have tried your solution but it seems that when I am running the flow, it remains stuck in an infinite loop in the first "for each"

I can try describing better my needs.

List A is currently in use in the powerapp I made. A new column has been added to it with data related to the employee at the time of the creation of the new entry. This means the column is now empty for all the previously made entries in this list. New entries will have the field populated. What I want to do is to fill the existing entries with the corresponding data based on the employee number matching in the list of employees (list B). This flow is intended to be run only one time but kept in backup in case we want to add new columns to the list A.

Let me know if this helps. I can provide screenshots if necessary

[v-yueyun-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi,  @Fnaud 

Thanks for your quick response! According to your description, your create a new Column in ListA and the new Item have the value but the old items dose not. You want to populate it with the data in ListB based on the field EmployeeID.

As my above reply is used to populate the one field from another field, and i do not what the issue in your side or i may misunderstand your need?

Can you give me some sample data in your ListA and ListB, and what's the data type for your new Column in ListA?

And can you share me your flow in your side and the end resul;t you want to show in your List A so that we can help you better!

Best Regards,

Yueyun Zhang

[Fnaud]

Hi  @v-yueyun-msft ,

It now works. It seems as I had to swap some things from your solution provided. The field in the "filter array". In the output in the apply to each I had to put the "value" from list A and the 2 first fields in the "filter array" had to be from the employee list (or list B). 

Another issue I encountered was in the "update item" where selecting the corresponding column to feed into list A forced another layer of "apply to each". I only had to create the "update item" without adding it into the necessary "apply to each" item. This solved my issue of the infinite loop. 

Thank you for your help!