How to check if an item exists on a SharePoint list

[sherwintan77]

I have an EmployeeID field in Microsoft Forms. When the form is submitted, I'd like to check if the EmployeeID exists in a Sharepoint List I've created (Employees table with column name EmployeeID). If it does not exist, Send email to notify me.

Any help would be appreciated!

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi sherwintan77,

Please try to add an action “SharePoint – Get items” to get the items in the list, then add a Condition, if the EmployeeID in MicrosoftForms is equal to EmployeeID in SharePoint list, do nothing, if no, send you an email.

Hope this works for your scenario. Please try it on your side to see if it will work for you.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[sherwintan77]

Hi Mabel,

Thanks for your response. I did that but I get a bad request in Get Items:

Spoiler

Outputs
Status code
400
Headers
{
  "Pragma": "no-cache",
  "x-ms-request-id": "f94641b8-7d25-4dfa-884f-71f238b0f45a",
  "Timing-Allow-Origin": "*",
  "Cache-Control": "no-cache",
  "Date": "Fri, 29 Sep 2017 19:55:23 GMT",
  "Set-Cookie": "ARRAffinity=1c9e178b01a7edf5c61dddca8a1b25611827b36b00452aca3fbb81b8878998b1;Path=/;HttpOnly;Domain=sharepointonlineconnectionprovider-westus.tip0-westus.p.azurewebsites.net",
  "X-AspNet-Version": "4.0.30319",
  "X-Powered-By": "ASP.NET",
  "Content-Length": "381",
  "Content-Type": "application/json; charset=utf-8",
  "Expires": "-1"
}

Body

{
  "status": 400,
  "message": "The query is not valid.\r\nclientRequestId: f94641b8-7d25-4dfa-884f-71f238b0f45a",
  "source": "https://mycompany.sharepoint.com/sites/teamstan/_api/SP.APIHubConnector.GetListItems(listName='a34b9222-f4f2-40d1-9b4d-0de2e5f087fb',queryOptions=@q)?@q='%2524filter%3d123456'",
  "errors": [
    "-1",
    "Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException"
  ]
}

Not sure what I'm doing wrong. 😞

[faustocapellanj]

Hi @sherwintan77,

Can you please post screenshots of your Flow steps?

Thanks.

[sherwintan77]

Sorry, here you go:

SAP ID is the employee ID.

[sherwintan77]

Ok I got his to work. Instead of just simply adding a condition, I specifically added an 'Apply to Each' from the 'More' option.

So basically my flow is this:

• When a new response is submitted (Preview)
• Get Items
• Apply to Each
• Set Output Value from Get Items value
• Condition: [SAP from When a new response is submitted (Preview)] is equal to [SAP from Get Items]
• If Yes Do Nothing
• If No, Send Email

Now my problem is:

When I run the flow, 100 emails are sent. Does this mean it goes through each record then fires an email if the condition is false?

How do I make it so it will only fire an email when it has gone through all the records and [SAP] still does not exist?

[faustocapellanj]

Hi @sherwintan77,

Based on the SAP information, how many items are you expecting to retrieve from the Get items step? Is this a SAP list that just contains a record per SAP, or is it a list that contains the specific SAP multiple times? If you can provide information on your list structure, that can help us see a better picture of your requirements.

Thanks,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

[sherwintan77]

Hi Fausto,

I made some changes and got most of it to work except just one part.

First, here's how my tables (as lists in Sharepoint) look like.

And this is the flow.

Sirius SBS form should populate the SBS Sharepoint List. But I need it to check if SAP exists in the Masterlist table.If there's a match, Create Item in SBS list then Send Confirmation Email. If there are no matches, then Send Failure Email. The problem is that Send Failure Email is not working.

[faustocapellanj]

Hi @sherwintan77,

What's the error message you are getting on that step? Can you please post it when you have a chance?

Thanks,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

[sherwintan77]

That's what's interesting because there are none. See below.I did notice though that the values are empty. See red arrows.

[faustocapellanj]

Hi @sherwintan77,

On my end, I set up the lists the same way you have them and created the flow. I am now waiting for the Forms flow to trigger; I read there's a one-hour delay for the flow to trigger from the Forms connector. I will keep you posted once the flow runs.

[faustocapellanj · Accepted solution]

Hi @sherwintan77,

So I got the results of my tests back and it worked on both Yes and No conditions. Your set up is not working because of the condition. In this step, you are checking whether or not the SAP ID exists in the Master list. In order to check for this condition, you have to check length of the "Get items" body. For example, in the Condition step, you have to check if the length is equals to either 0 (the SAP ID does not exist), or 1 (the SAP ID exists). This is the Expression I'm using in the Condition
"@equals(length(body('Get_items')?['value']), 1)". Note: in case you didn't know, you need to edit the Condition in advanced mode in order to enter this expression. Only use the bold text without the double quotes. The screenshots below show the results for both conditions.

This is the Expression for the Condition. You have to edit the condition for this expression in advance mode.This is the result from the Get items step.In this one, the Condition returns false and sends the email about the SAP ID not existing.In this one, the Condition returns true. It then creates the item in the SBS list and sends the email about the new SBS item being created.

Please let me know if this works for you.

Regards,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

[sherwintan77]

Brilliant! This worked! Thanks much Fausto!

[faustocapellanj]

Hi @sherwintan77

I'm glad that it worked. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you ever need help.

Regards,

Fausto Capellan, Jr

[Berny]

I just wanted to say thanks for posting the detaild work through for this issue. I really appreciate it since it helped me solve a similar issue.

One thing to add is the condition should be Greater than or equal to incase there are multiple items with the same search criteria

@greaterOrEquals(length(body('Get_items')?['value']), 1)

[faustocapellanj]

Hi @Berny

I'm glad the solution helped you with your issue. The case with the original post was to look for one specific list item since the EmployeeID value would be unique, making this a one-to-one case. As for your suggestion, it is a great idea, but this would be excellent in a one-to-many scenario where you are looking for a value and the query will return several items.

Thank you for the suggestion.

Fausto Capellan, Jr

[Berny]

I completely agree - In my list I was expecting to just find one item but there were a few "issues" where there were multiple items found. So changing it to allow for the multiple items seems like a great idea as it works for either one or more than one item identified. 

[faustocapellanj]

Ah, got it. I see this approach is excellent in the event you don't know if the list is set up to only follow a unique ID approach. I will definitely keep that expression handy. Thanks for that.

[Florin1]

Hi,

I'm new in sharepoint flow and i need a little bit more help if it's posssible :

- i have 2 lists : list1 and list2

- list1 has a column "serialnumber1"

-list2 has a column " serialnumber2"

what i want , when a new item it's added in list1 , to check "serialnumber1" if exist in list2 in "serialnumber2".

thank you in advance!

[Anonymous]

Hi @faustocapellanj 

thank you for your flow example... it is pretty much like for like for what I need. However, it won't let me use the formula and keeps saying .....

Any ideas? 

Basically I'm trying do do very similar. I have a database which holds empoyee Information (SHEQ Admin). Every employee has a unique employee number.

Weekly a list will be uploaded with current employees (Cascade list) and I want the flow to check current employee Numbers (Cascade) against the database list employee numbers (SHEQ Admin). 

Thank you so much in advance.