Get substring from file name and move to matching SharePoint Online folder

[benny_blanco]

Hi,

I'm having difficulties trying to achieve the following scenario using Power Automate - I have a document library holding many folders. Each folder is named after an individual employee and her/his ID number, for instance John Doe, 1111111, the ID will always come after a comma, or some other separator. There is another document library, to which files for these employees will be uploaded. The file names will contain the name and the ID of the employee. Now what I'm trying to achieve and create an automation for is, to get the ID number out of the name of the file as it'll always be unique, out of the whole string, then look for the folder in the first document library holding all user folders containing this substring and based on that, to move it to that folder that matches the ID substring. Any help/ideas will be very much appreciated.

[v-litu-msft]

Hi @benny_blanco,

You could use the split() function to convert the file name into an array, for example:

split('John Doe, 1111111',',')

The result will be:

[

"John Doe"

"1111111"

]

Then you could use last() function to get the "1111111", for example:

last(split('John Doe, 1111111',','))

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
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[benny_blanco]

Thank you for the formula! Replaced the name and ID part with the dynamic value of the actual document name and it is separating and returning everything after the separator. Any ideas on how to make it look for the one folder that contains the same ID information and to move it there automatically?

[v-litu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @benny_blanco,

Yes, after you get the ID, please refer to the following steps:

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[benny_blanco]

Thank you for that! Let me test and will let you know.

Cheers!

[benny_blanco]

Hi @v-litu-msft ,

Thank you, it worked! 

Something else I want to ask though about the formula you provided - it gets everything after the separator, but gets the file extension as well (.pdf, .docx). How can I make it work without getting that part, the file extension?

[v-litu-msft]

Hi @benny_blanco,

Use the split() function again, separate by ".", for example:

first(split('1111.excel','.'))

It will return: 1111

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[benny_blanco]

@v-litu-msft  - Can I ask you for some help again as I can't figure it out. It turns out the actual string looks like this -

JonasSmith-Joe-1234567-CLMPDVVD-TB.pdf

and I need to extract only the ID part, only the digits you see and then look for that ID in the folders, if they contain it. How can I extract the ID alone first, then the name at the beginning alone again? Thank you for the support!  

[v-litu-msft]

Hi @benny_blanco,

Use the split() function could do it:

split function could separate a string by a substring, convert it into an array, then index could extract member of the array:

split(outputs('Compose'),'-')[2]

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[benny_blanco]

Thank you as usual! Will try it and let you know.

[benny_blanco]

@v-litu-msft -Thank you, works perfect and depending on the digit inside of the brackets, I can manipulate what to return, after which - sign.

[benny_blanco]

@v-litu-msft  - Hi, hope you are doing well? If I could ask you again for an advice and possible resolution to my task. You helped me a lot so far, but now I'm struggling for days to achieve the following - Once a file is created in a SharePoint folder, for the demo purposes let's name it Library1, I need to extract the file's ID from the name string of the file, which will be something like this - JohnDoe-JD-012345-DF-CONF.docx, so I need just the 0123456 part. Then I need to find the folder within that main folder Library one that contains that ID, something like folder JohnDoe_0123456 and place that file there. That you helped me with and I think is working fine now. The new part is, if the ID of the document is not included in any folder (that means that there's no such user in the folder), the folder to be created in the main Library1 and the file placed inside. Also each of these user folders within the main Library1 folder will have to subfolders inside called "Confidential" and "General". So what I have to also achieve is not only to place the document to its corresponding folder that contains its ID, but if the document also contains CONF in its name, to place it inside the Confidential folder, if not, in the General? Have been trying for days with no result whatsoever. Any help would be very much appreciated, thank you in advance!