How to write expression that does nothing if true

[Anonymous]

Hello and thanks for your time/help in advance.

I have a form that includes multiple date entry response fields that are connected to respective columns in a sharepoint excel table. I have a flow set up to get the table and search for the project number field with a condition to either add a new row (if a match is not found) or update the row (if a match is found).

Lets say the table was previously populated with a date input and then a submitter sends in the form with that field blank since there were no changes to that specific date field, but they wanted to provide information for other fields in that row. What happens is the existing date is updated in that row with blank, effectively removing the information we want to keep. 

I would like for an expression to check if the form has a response populated for that field and if yes then update the corresponding place in that row with the date, if the field is blank on the form when submitted it does nothing (effectively leaving any existing information in place).

I've been trying an if empty type logic which works but for the expression I don't know what to put in to tell it to not do anything if true. The expression below is as far as I have gotten. Again, with this input the expression is updating that field with "true". The expression will not let me leave that blank or empty or null. Any thoughts?

if(empty(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r001efb706bf6466ea7bf0c69bb3b5710']),true,outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r001efb706bf6466ea7bf0c69bb3b5710'])

Fields in Update a row:

[tom_riha · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous ,

the if(...) expression works as below:

if(<condition>, <ifConditionTrue>, <ifConditionFalse>)

the 'true' you use in the if(...) tells it to use the value 'true' if the condition is true (the value is empty). You should use the empty value (null) there instead:

if(empty(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r001efb706bf6466ea7bf0c69bb3b5710']),null,outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/r001efb706bf6466ea7bf0c69bb3b5710'])

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the suggestion Tom. Unfortunately that doesn't work. If I use null there and the response for that field on the form is blank then it blanks out the corresponding field on the spreadsheet thereby deleting the existing information we had in that field. I am hoping to preserve that information if new information for that field is not submitted in the form. 

I'm not sure if there is maybe a way to get the data for that item and have that be the content for the true side of the argument. Maybe that would work, or possibly the true side could just do something not noticeable to the existing content like update the formatting? Just throwing out ideas I don't know how to make happen in the program lol.

[Anonymous]

I stand corrected. After additional testing this does work. Thanks!!!

[MinHo]

Hi atkinson i do have some obstacles like you, if i use null in the expression the existing data will be erased. Can you share how you fixed it? Thank you

[Jmorris0923]

@Anonymous  what was your solution? I am also having issues using this method with excel as my source data. I created a ticket with Microsoft and they could not come up with a solution as this was still clearing out the data in the update to D365. However, when I have used this method in another workflow my source data was a form, it did not clear the info in D365. Any insight on what worked for you would be helpful. 

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I was able to get the formula working using the null function. I started over from scratch and it worked as intended. I am not sure why null would not work initially but maybe there was something causing an issue I was missing the first go through. You may be able to add an if statement that says "if the form response is blank then input the existing data from that cell that was pulled during the List rows present in the table action, otherwise input the form response"

[Jmorris0923]

Still struggling with passing in null from a spreadsheet data source. I have worked with Microsoft and there is still no solution. Posting my Flow here to see if anyone can help on these blank values being passed into D365. I don't want to create multiple conditions as I need this expression for a lot of fields. 

I have tried 

if(empty(outputs('ListRows')?['Main Phone']),null , outputs('ListRows')?['Main Phone'])

if(empty(outputs('ListRows')?['Main Phone']),' ' , outputs('ListRows')?['Main Phone'])