Get latest file from SFTP

[Walentyn]

Hi all!

Goal: to get latest file (by modified date) from SFTP folder and upload it to database server (or sharepoint). It must be scheduled flow, so I can't use automated triggers.

The problem is that I can't get my flow to determine the latest modified file in SFTP.  

I appreciate any help! thank you!

[Paulie78 · Accepted solution]

I worked out a way of doing this, but I am not sure if it is the most efficient (but it works). The List Files in FTP action exposes a LastModified property, which you can use to find the latest file. The flow pictured below converts the LastModified property to a tick and then compares that against a variable which contains the previously found largest tick. If it is greater than it populates a variable called "NewestFile" with the properties of that file. Which gives output like:

{
  "Id": "L3RtcC90ZXN0ZmlsZS50eHQ=",
  "Name": "testfile.txt",
  "DisplayName": "testfile.txt",
  "Path": "/tmp/testfile.txt",
  "LastModified": "2020-11-08T22:03:51Z",
  "Size": 1,
  "MediaType": "text/plain",
  "IsFolder": false,
  "ETag": "\"MTEvMDgvMjAyMCAyMjowMzo1MXwx\"",
  "FileLocator": "L3RtcC90ZXN0ZmlsZS50eHQ="
}

Because this is a single object you can more easily extract the values to perform subsequent actions (such as your file upload). The flow is a little confusing, but you should be able to comprehend it. If you're wondering why I don't have a SFTP "List files in Folder" action, it is because I had one originally, but I got bored of waiting for it to execute. So my "List files in folder" action is just an array of the output from that action (i.e. produces the same result).

https://ibb.co/J7Pw2FM

See if it makes sense to you. It does seem complex for what should be a simple operation to me. Perhaps someone can come up with something better.

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[VisheshVats]

Hi, thanks for the detailed description of steps. Trying to replicate your process, just stuck on one thing, In the condition how do we write the 'true' expression? I tried 'true' but it says "undefined". 

Also, now that I've found the latest file how do I copy it to Onedrive? sorry for being so inquisitive, this is my first flow so I'm unaware of a lot of basic things too.  

Thanks in advance.