Updating people picker field with users from a SharePoint Group

[OliverR-82]

Hi Power Community,

I have a SharePoint list with a multi-people picker field. In my flow I would like to populate this field with all the users from a specific SharePoint Group. What I thought I would try is the following:

This gets me an array with all the users in the SharePoint group. So far so good. Next I thought I could simply use that Array variable in my Update Item action:

However, this results in the following error:

The 'inputs.parameters' of workflow operation 'Update_item' of type 'OpenApiConnection' is not valid. Error details: The API operation does not allow writing a value for parameter 'item/ActieVereist[0]/Email'. This parameter is read only.

I've done some research online about this error and it seems quite a few people have been experiencing problems with this error, usually with fields other than the 'Email' field but mostly similar scenarios. Most posts I come across are from August/September 2020, with people saying that this used to work but doesn't anymore.

So... How do I get around this? I did find this most useful post from @Anonymous_v and it does almost exactly what I'm trying to do, except that he's getting the users from an O365 (now M365) Group instead of a SharePoint group. Trying his way gives me a different error, as I've posted in a response to that post at the bottom of that page.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as always.

[Expiscornovus · Accepted solution]

Hi @OliverR-82,

I would use a parse json and the loginname field to construct the SPGroupUsers array.

1. Remove the d.results value from your SPGroupUsers Array variable action

2. Add a parse json action after your GetSPGroupUsers action. Use the following schema

{
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "d": {
            "type": "object",
            "properties": {
                "results": {
                    "type": "array",
                    "items": {
                        "type": "object",
                        "properties": {
                            "__metadata": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "id": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    },
                                    "uri": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    },
                                    "type": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "Alerts": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "__deferred": {
                                        "type": "object",
                                        "properties": {
                                            "uri": {
                                                "type": "string"
                                            }
                                        }
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "Groups": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "__deferred": {
                                        "type": "object",
                                        "properties": {
                                            "uri": {
                                                "type": "string"
                                            }
                                        }
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "Id": {
                                "type": "integer"
                            },
                            "IsHiddenInUI": {
                                "type": "boolean"
                            },
                            "LoginName": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "Title": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "PrincipalType": {
                                "type": "integer"
                            },
                            "Email": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "Expiration": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "IsEmailAuthenticationGuestUser": {
                                "type": "boolean"
                            },
                            "IsShareByEmailGuestUser": {
                                "type": "boolean"
                            },
                            "IsSiteAdmin": {
                                "type": "boolean"
                            },
                            "UserId": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "__metadata": {
                                        "type": "object",
                                        "properties": {
                                            "type": {
                                                "type": "string"
                                            }
                                        }
                                    },
                                    "NameId": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    },
                                    "NameIdIssuer": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "UserPrincipalName": {
                                "type": "string"
                            }
                        },
                        "required": [
                            "__metadata",
                            "Alerts",
                            "Groups",
                            "Id",
                            "IsHiddenInUI",
                            "LoginName",
                            "Title",
                            "PrincipalType",
                            "Email",
                            "Expiration",
                            "IsEmailAuthenticationGuestUser",
                            "IsShareByEmailGuestUser",
                            "IsSiteAdmin",
                            "UserId",
                            "UserPrincipalName"
                        ]
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Use the the results of the Parse Json action in an Apply to Each

body('Parse_JSON')?['d']?['results']

4. Add an append array action within that apply to each with the following value:

{"Claims": "@{items('Apply_to_each')?['LoginName']}"}

5. Use the Array to update a multi-people field in SharePoint. In my example I updating a list item.

Updated my post, missed one step

[OliverR-82]

Hi @Expiscornovus ,

That works! Funnily enough that's almost exactly what I had also tried before, except that I used the body of the GetSPGroupUsers action in my Apply To Each. That gave me an error that I didn't know how to fix. It hadn't occurred to me to try and use the results from the Parse Json action. There's still a lot I have to learn about Power Automate, that's for sure.

Thank you so much for your quick reply, it's really appreciated!

[OliverR-82]

Hi @Expiscornovus ,

I'm sorry to bother you again but since you knew the solution to this problem, maybe you can help with this related one as well.

Updating a list item through the Update Item action works fine. However, if at all possible I would like to update the item using an HTTP action, because that allows me to update just the fields that need updating. The list has dozens of fields that can change all the time and I would rather not go through all of them with the Update Item action.

Unfortunately, trying to update the people picker field via an HTTP action results in the following error:

A 'PrimitiveValue' node with non-null value was found when trying to read the value of a navigation property; however, a 'StartArray' node, a 'StartObject' node, or a 'PrimitiveValue' node with null value was expected.

I've found other posts regarding this problem but none where people are experiencing it in Power Automate.

My HTTP action looks like this:

Do you happen to have any idea how I would need to formulate the body of that HTTP call for this to work? I get the same error when I try to update the field with the User's Claims or Email fields, nothing seems to work here.

Thanks in advance for your time.

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @OliverR-82,

I think this should be a POST request instead of a PATCH, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/sp-add-ins/working-with-lists-and-list-items-with-re...

And I think you also need to remove the quotation mark characters around the array variable of your ActieVereist field. I also used a different header.

Below is an example of what should work. Updated the example by using user ids array instead of claims. That should work.

Headers

{
  "content-type": "application/json; odata=verbose",
  "accept": "application/json; odata=verbose",
  "IF-MATCH": "*",
  "X-HTTP-METHOD": "MERGE"
}

Body, notice the Id after the PeopleTest field. It should be PeopleTestId. In your case ActieVereistId

{
	"__metadata": {
    "type": "@{outputs('Send_an_HTTP_request_to_SharePoint_-_ListItemEntity')?['body/ListItemEntityTypeFullName']}"
  },
  "Title": "Testing Update via HTTP Claims",
  "PeopleTestId": { "results": @{variables('SPGroupUserIds')}}
}

[OliverR-82]

@Expiscornovus  you're a star, thank you so much.

This works and makes my life a lot easier. I've learned a lot today about working with the HTTP action, I had never used the POST method before now.

Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions so extensively. I hope to one day be able to contribute to this community in the same way. For now I'm still mostly reading and learning.

[rsxytpeo]

This didn't work for me, my flow kept repeating the update action step and never finished.  Status kept saying Bad Gateway.

[OliverR-82]

Hi @rsxytpeo ,

A status message saying 'Bad Gateway' sounds like the problem lies somewhere else, and not in the JSON body of the HTTP request. 

If you could post a screenshot of your flow we could try and see what the problem may be.