Updating a flow to filter through items to see if they change prior to updating in Microsoft list

[cora_bx]

Hello,

Looking for a little help with building out a flow. I currently have a flow set up (See below) that runs successfully every 2 hours that will take all rows in a excel table and update my Microsoft list if it is currently in the list. If it is not it will create the item. What I am looking for help on is every 2 hours it runs through and updates every single item that is in the Microsoft list if it is in the excel table even if it hasn't changed. this is causing a very long update. What I would like to do is for it to someway filter through the excel table prior to updating and only update the items that have changed / skip the items that have not. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. 

[creativeopinion]

@cora_bx It's not recommended to nest a Get Items action inside an Apply to Each action. You should pull the Get Items action outside of the Apply to Each action and run it in the root of your flow—only once.

Then use a Filter Array action to filter out items that need to be updated, created and/or deleted. I cover how to compare an Excel table to a SP list in the first section of this tutorial: Are you using the Microsoft Power Automate Filter Array Action wrong?

In this video tutorial I’ll show you 3 practical ways to use the Filter Array action and how to use it properly.

1️⃣ Cross-Referencing Data

2️⃣ Filtering by Key

3️⃣ Substring Matching

Did you know that the Condition action has a limit of 10 conditions? Although it might look like the Filter Array action can only accept one condition—this is not true. By using the advanced mode you can enter multiple conditions into a Filter Array action with an expression.

IN THIS VIDEO:

✅ 3 Ways to Use the Filter Array Action

✅ How to use the Scope Action to Group Actions

✅ How to Check the Number of Items returned from a Filter Array Action

✅ How to Cross-Reference Data in Excel with a SharePoint List

✅ How the Filter Array Action Works

✅ How to Access the Dynamic Content from a Filter Array Action

✅ How to Filter Items by a Key

✅ How to Filter Items by Matching a Substring

✅ How to Use Multiple Conditions in a Filter Array Action

Hope this helps!

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[cora_bx]

Hello, Thank you for this input. I have watched the video and it got me pretty far in the process. My create item flow is working perfectly. The trouble I am having now is after I filter the items from the get data step and compose the number of items that match, I would then like to filter the items that have changed or do not not match. For example if I have 10 items in the excel that are also in the sharepoint list and only 2 items have had a changed in the excel file, I would like to only update those 2 items in sharepoint list. Not update all 10 items. Can you help what direction I should take to accomplish this?