Ignore JSON reference

[Donzera]

Hi there,

  I'm building a flow where its getting some information from MS Planner through Graph API, all the fields I already have set, are working fine, however there is one field that I am having some issues/doubt with that. On this field I need to bring the name of the attachment file. For that I'm using the following query: https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/planner/tasks/<task-id>/details

The output is the following JSON:

{
  "@odata.context": "some link",
  "@odata.etag": "tag",
  "previewType": "automatic",
  "id": "<id>",
  "references": {
    "link with an unique ID for this task": {
      "@odata.type": "#microsoft.graph.plannerExternalReference",
      "alias": "I need this value",
      "type": "Other",
      "previewPriority": "<priority>",
      "lastModifiedDateTime": "2022-11-09T05:32:01.8176896Z",
      "lastModifiedBy": {
        "user": {
          "displayName": null,
          "id": "<id>"
        }
      }
    },
    "reference that is unique for each task: {
      "@odata.type": "#microsoft.graph.plannerExternalReference",
      "alias": "i dont this alias",
      "type": "Other",
      "previewPriority": "<priority>",
      "lastModifiedDateTime": "2022-11-09T05:32:01.8176896Z",
      "lastModifiedBy": {
        "user": {
          "displayName": null,
          "id": "<id>"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

I need to use the first alias, where I put the name above as "I need this value". But the name of the schema is different for each task, I pasted here as "reference that is unique for each task", and because of that, I can't use the value of my alias. Is there a way to ignore the "reference that is unique for each task", and use the alias property? Ot is there any other approach, that I can use to use that value?

Hope I made myself clear, thank for any help.

Thanks

[grantjenkins · Accepted solution]

If it's always the first alias you want, then you can use xpath/xml. See example below.

Full flow below. I'll go into each of the actions.

For this example, I've got a string variable to hold the JSON. You already have this from your Graph API response.

I then use a Compose to convert the JSON to xml so we can use xpath on it. Note that xml requires a root element, so use concat here to get valid xml.

xml(json(concat('{"root": ', variables('xml'), '}')))

And finally, another Compose using xpath to extract out the first alias.

first(xpath(outputs('XML'), '//references/*[1]/alias/text()'))

This gets the references element, and within there, gets the first element regardless of name (so your first link_ element). Then gets the alias element and just the text. This returns an array since it doesn't know if there will be more than 1 result, so the [0] on the end just gets the first (only) array item.

For your reference, the xml would look like:

<root odata.context="some link" odata.etag="tag">
  <previewType>automatic
  </previewType>
  <id>&lt;id&gt;
  </id>
  <references>
    <link_x0020_with_x0020_an_x0020_unique_x0020_ID_x0020_for_x0020_this_x0020_task odata.type="#microsoft.graph.plannerExternalReference">
      <alias>I need this value
      </alias>
      <type>Other
      </type>
      <previewPriority>&lt;priority&gt;
      </previewPriority>
      <lastModifiedDateTime>2022-11-09T05:32:01.8176896Z
      </lastModifiedDateTime>
      <lastModifiedBy>
        <user>
          <displayName />
          <id>&lt;id&gt;
          </id>
        </user>
      </lastModifiedBy>
    </link_x0020_with_x0020_an_x0020_unique_x0020_ID_x0020_for_x0020_this_x0020_task>
    <reference_x0020_that_x0020_is_x0020_unique_x0020_for_x0020_each_x0020_task_x0020_2 odata.type="#microsoft.graph.plannerExternalReference">
      <alias>i dont this alias
      </alias>
      <type>Other
      </type>
      <previewPriority>&lt;priority&gt;
      </previewPriority>
      <lastModifiedDateTime>2022-11-09T05:32:01.8176896Z
      </lastModifiedDateTime>
      <lastModifiedBy>
        <user>
          <displayName />
          <id>&lt;id&gt;
          </id>
        </user>
      </lastModifiedBy>
    </reference_x0020_that_x0020_is_x0020_unique_x0020_for_x0020_each_x0020_task_x0020_2>
  </references>
</root>

[Donzera]

Wow, this is working nice, I still have to test the previous solution you gave me on my other post. However, I'm running this through multiple tasks in my flow, and I just realize some of those tasks don't have any reference and because of that, my flow is failing, is there a way to skip those with none reference?

Thanks

[grantjenkins · Accepted solution]

I've just updated my original solution.

I was initially using the following expression which would fail if there were no references.

xpath(outputs('XML'), '//references/*[1]/alias/text()')[0]

Changed it to the following which will just return null if no references, so no error occurs.

first(xpath(outputs('XML'), '//references/*[1]/alias/text()'))

[Donzera]

Man, thank you so much for that, that helped me and instruct me very well. Really appreciate your time. Have a good day and weekend! 🙂