Prevent scheduled flow from changing modified date after updating items in SharePoint list.

[Wompwoh]

Hello,

I have a scheduled flow to track "Days Old" and applies the new calculation for each item in the list on a daily basis. Every time it does this, it updates the [Modified] date for the item. Is there a way to prevent this job from changing the modified date? The solution must still allow the modified date to update only when items are manually changed.

I'm trying to build another scheduled flow that is based on the modified date from manual changes, and I'm unable to do so with my current process.

Thank you all for the help!

[David_MA]

I don't think what you want to do is possible. However, you may be able to adapt what is in the following post to update the modified field. This post is for changing the Created by field. If you can update that, then it should be possible to use this method on the modified field as well. I would caution to proceed at your own risk since the modified, created, created by, modified by are all system fields within SharePoint and are not really designed to be updated by users. Here is the post: Update the Created By (AuthorID) Field of a ShareP... - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

[David_MA]

I asked a colleague and they had this in their back pocket: #FlowNinja hack 78 - modifying Modified By and Modified time with Microsoft Flow — John Liu .NET. Again, I would use caution if you try this. At least this post acknowledged it is a hack.

[Wompwoh]

Thank you David, I had a feeling this would be difficult/impossible to do but you never know. I'll consider this, but in the meantime I'll leave this post open to more suggestions just in case.

[wskinnermctc · Accepted solution]

@David_MA thanks for posting that! I had no idea the modified column could be changed. I just tested it a few times and it appears to work. (The guide could've given the text format to copy instead of just photos.)

I wouldn't necessarily be afraid to use it. I just tested it a few times and seems fine to me.

There is another column "SMLastModifiedDate" that is System Modified Date and it will change whenever you modify the item, even if the "Modified" field is manually changed.

So it's not like you are secretly hacking and tricking the system. The "SMLastModifiedDate" will continually update.

I just made an example, it seemed to work just fine. Basically, you update the item with a HTTP request. But before the HTTP Request, you use a Get Item to get the info and current Modified time. Then you put that in the HTTP request to basically updated the Modified time with it's current Modified time.

So in my example I was updating the Title field, @Wompwoh you would update your Count columns or whatever.

Get Item - Update Item with HTTP Request using it's own Modified time to update the Modified time and remain the same.

Here is the text in the body - these can be tricky and spacing can cause things to error, so be mindful of how you format your HTTP request.

{
"formValues": [
    {
      "FieldName": "Title",
      "FieldValue": "Account Main"
    },
    {
      "FieldName": "AgentName",
      "FieldValue": "Susan"
    },
    { 
      "FieldName": "Modified",
      "FieldValue": "@{outputs('Get_item_to_update')?['body/Modified']}"
    }
  ],
  "bNewDocumentUpdate": true,
  "datesInUTC": true
}

The part at the bottom datesInUTC is important because you don't have to format the modified time. If you don't do that then you will have to format it in the local method which is very odd considering all other date times want UTC, but the Modified wants local.

Anyways, good luck, I would be confident using this method. But I just learned it 30 minutes ago lol, so maybe it does something else I'm not aware.

[Wompwoh]

This is great! The Uri you used looks like it's only updating a specific item. If I put this in an [apply to each] function, what would I type in the Uri so that it updates the modified date of each item in the list? Would this work?:

[Wompwoh]

Update: I tried what I mentioned in my first reply to you and it worked!

Thanks all for the input @wskinnermctc  & @David_MA