Teams Channel creation using flow, does not create SharePoint folder

[TimoLenz]

Hi,

I build a flow that creates a channel in a given Microsoft Teams team. That works all fine. 

After channel creation I look at the SharePoint library and could not see the channel folder.

But after I clicked the files-tab in Teams, the folder is created ...

Has anybody some thoughts on this?

I would need the folder as I would like to copy a folder structure into the channel folder using flow.

thanks in advance 

Timo

[v-bacao-msft]

Hi @TimoLenz,

I did a test on my side and created a custom channel using the Create a channel action.

Click on the newly created channel in Teams, then click on "Open in SharePoint" to go directly to the corresponding folder.

You will find that these folders are created in "Documents".

Please take a try.

Best Regards,

Barry

[TimoLenz]

Hi @v-Bacar-msft,

thanks for reproducing me issue. But that’s exactly me problem, the folder is only created if “someone” goes to the newly created team channel and opens the file tab.

Please try the following:
1. Create the channel using the flow action
2. *do not go to the channel in teams*
3. Open your browser and navigate to the team site
4. Go to the shared document library
5. You will see the General folder and other channel folders, but not the channel folder created a few seconds ago.
6. Now go to teams and open the file tab
7. Switch back to your browser and you see that the folder is there.

—-

You can do the same with a manual creation of the channel. The behavior is here different. The folder is created without opening the file tab.

—-

I need this, because I want to copy some files and folders into the channel directly
After creation in flow.

Kg
Timo

[v-bacao-msft]

Hi @TimoLenz,

Thank you for your sharing and reply.

I did the test on my side, and it is exactly the same as what you described. If we don't click "Open in SharePoint", we can't see the newly created channel under the Document folder.

Do you want to configure the action directly in the Flow, copy the corresponding file into the newly created channel or in SharePoint?

If it is the second case, I feel that the current issue does not seem to affect your operation.

If it is the former, could you provide the specific action you want to configure? Maybe I can achieve your needs through other way.

Please provide more details and we would provide proper workaround for you.

Best Regards,

Barry

[Stefan_Gi]

Hello, we face exactly the same problem with Flow. This seems to be a pretty new bug since the channel creation via PowerShell with the Teams module is also affected, although it still worked perfectly 6 weeks ago. As an alternative, we tried to build a flow, but this results in the same scenario that @TimoLenz described. Without clicking the "Files" tab in Teams after creating the channel, no corresponding directory is available in the Sharepoint document library of the related team site.

@v-bacao-msft:

Our use case is the following:

1. We want to create a team channel (with our presumption that a directory with the same name is also immediately created in Sharepoint).
2. Right after the previous step, we want to copy folders to this newly created directory in Sharepoint.

However, step 2 will always fail because the path of the directory we assumed to exist is unknown (since the directory is not created automatically, but only when the "Files" tab in Teams is clicked). This behavior is really strange and besides Flow, the "New-TeamChannel" command in Powershell produces the same issue. Weird that at least the Powershell command worked as expected in November 2018, as already said. That's why I suppose that the action in Flow was successful in November as well, but is not anymore.

Do you have any idea how to approach this problem? Any help is appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Stefan

[sscarcella]

I am seeing the same thing happen which casues problems because if users go to SharePoint first they start to create folders and then there will be duplicates....  will they be fixing this?

[KevinLee40]

I'm getting the same problem with PowerShell.  

Our use case is similar in that we want to create a channel, then create a standard subfolder structure for our users.  We also would like to modify the access to some of these folders. 

Kev

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[hsmehta]

We are also facing same issue, automating teams provisioning using powerapps and flow to create channels and predefined folder structure.

Tried creating folder on background but it does not map to channel and creates own folder. Pls help is this feature or expected behavior.

This is blocker for teams rollout and impact adoption as well.

Hemal.

[JimmyWork]

Im having the same issue.

I might also add the if you create a private channel, the sharepoint site for the private channel is never created unless you visit the files tab in the teams app for that private channel.

[Tom_Adams]

One for the thread resurrection fans...

I've now run in to the same challenge; I want a flow that creates a Sharepoint folder on creation of a new teams channel before then copying a standard folder set across...

Did anyone ever solve the problem?

[Anonymous]

same issue here.

does anyone have a solution for it ? 

[Anonymous]

I don't know if this is the solution to your problem.

I've created a channel 'Sales' within a new Team and then used the SharePoint 'create folder' action to create the folder within this Sales Channel/Folder

and solved the issue on my side.

[Tom_Adams]

Looks promising; The issue that I would have is that I then need to copy a standard 'folder structure' in to that same Folder. I'll have to have a look back on Flow and see if there's an easy way of doing it...

[balajinarni]

Same Problem here. We are trying to copy folder structure with files on to the newly created channel which is not working due to someone needs to manually click on the files tab to get the folder structure created. Any work around for this?

[JimmyWork]

@balajinarni Try creating a folder with the same name of the channel, this might work as a manually trigger. Then you can create the folder structure as the channel will be available.

[balajinarni]

@JimmyWork That worked. Folder is getting correctly mapped with Teams channel with out any issues.

Thanks.

[NMBU]

Hi, 

This does not seem to be resolved by the latest suggestion as far as I can tell. We're creating private channels automatically based on Forms' submission (pending admin Approval) and want to always copy a set of files to these channels. I've tested with adding a 5 minute Delay step between the Teams channel creation step and the step where I attempt to create the folder in the sharepoint site of the channel (with the exact same name). It fails with a 404 when trying to create the folder in sharepoint, even though I gave Teams 5 minutes to create it's backing SP site. Then I clicked the Files tab in Teams manually, and voila, sharepoint site was created.

So it seems impossible to create the folder allowing me to copy files to each channel fully automated. Some user needs to click Files tab first.

A workaround could be to create some kind of listener flow in power automate that would trigger when the sharepoint site exits, and then the files can be copied over. But that means the users would not see the files upon first visiting Files tab, since it happens after the fact. So that's not a good solution.

If there is a way to trigger the creation of the backing SP site like Teams does that could solve the problem. Though not sure how to achieve that yet. 

[JimmyWork]

@NMBU I have been struggling with this myself and i have informed MS about it.

But try this, Create the folder first then the private channel. It works for me for creating the folder after. What happens here is the following.

If you create a channel and visit the channel you trigger the sync/creation. By creating a folder with the same name actually triggers the same events as visiting the tab.

[PancakeMaker99]

@JimmyWork I have been working on this as well and can not get it to work.  How can you create the folder before you create the teams private channel?  can you explain more?

[JimmyWork]

@PancakeMaker99 Use the Create new folder (SharePoint) in flow.

1. Create Team in flow.

2. Create Folder using (Create new folder, SharePoint) name this the exact name you intended to name the private channel.

3. Create the private channel, now the sync will happen due to the name of the folder is the same name as the private channel

I did.

1. Create Team.

2. Create private channel.

3. Create folder with same name as channel. This triggers the sync