converting arrays to objects

[bonjourposte]

I want a nice clean flow like this: 

But I get everything wrapped in "Apply to Each's" because I'm in Power BI and all my dynamic content is arrays.  [So many tutorials are using Sharepoint, point in case above.  Unfortunately data coming from Power BI is not an object, it's an array (right?)].  How can I just take everything out of the array so I can get all the unnecessary looping out of my flow?

[HenWang · Accepted solution]

Hi @bonjourposte ，

This would be a frequent question in power automate, when the dynamic content value flow refers to in any action is actually from an array, then the single action like "Create item", "Create file",,,etc. will automatically generate an Apply to each action outside this action.

However, you can use expression to select any one single item(object) from the source action. Please check my below demo flow:

For the source action, I used the SharePoint "Get items" action, which will return an array including items(object) inside. By the way, even if there is only one item(object) inside this array, it is still an array instead of a single object.

This is the result of get items:

As you can see, power automate returns me an array with two items inside, this is why flow generates the apply to each action outside my compose action when this compose action want to get the Title value from the SharePoint items as below:

The way to avoid this is to capture the title from the specific item(object) of the "Get items" action. (While for you, it should be the Power BI related action)

For instance, I need the title value from the specific item whose ID value is "7". And you can see that it is the second item inside the array.

My expression:

outputs('Get_items')?['body/value'][1]?['Title']

As you can see, inside this expression, the outputs('Get_items')?['body/value'] actually is exactly the value dynamic content of "Get items" action. While the following number [1] inside expression actually means the second item of the array, because the order number starts from number 0 instead of number 1. 

And then the ? character always means that it is accessing the property of the specific item(object)'s property, and then which property? Here you will see, it's ['Title'] property.

So, you can use above way to capture any object and any property inside the object from the array returned by your Power BI action. Remember that '0' means the first item, '1' means the second,,,etc.

Hope this can help.

Best Regards,

Hen Wang

[bonjourposte]

Hi Hen, thanks, this was helpful to my years-long struggle to understanding arrays and objects in Power Automate.  However, I had a friend help me with this over the weekend, and we ended up re-building the flow without needing to do any expression-building, and I'm still as confused as before- why did Power Automate allow me to populate all these connectors with arrays and not wrap every step of the way in an Apply to Each like it did before?

We allowed that we needed one Apply to Each, so to build the loop, I selected the loan data in the first purple connector, and it wrapped it immediately in an Apply to Each, which I understand because the yellow blocks are arrays:

I then Parsed the arrays into JSON, and input into my Run Script, where I again used the yellow blocks, and I thought "surely it's going to wrap it into an Apply to Each", but it didn't:

Again, I created a compound file name based on the arrays, and used the yellow blocks.  Again to my surprise, it didn't wrap the connector in an Apply to Each.  

Why did it let me ?  It didn't before.

[HenWang · Accepted solution]

Hi @bonjourposte ,

Sorry for the late reply.

As to this current question, to make it simple to explain, all of the used yellow dynamic contents are the objects of your "Power BI data":

Inside the apply to each action, you can imagine that all of the nested actions share the same working location: the current item/row/record of the Power BI data array. And each item/row/record has the same columns/fields, this is why there is no need for flow to create a new apply to each action inside.

Below scenario adds the nested apply to each as expected:

In this flow, I get two arrays from the excel action and sharepoint get items action. Then I want to show column value from excel array in compose action:

Flow gives me one "Apply to each" action and this is expected result because flow is trying to show me column1's value from each item/row/record of the excel table.

But I want to show the title column from my SharePoint list at the same time within this "Apply to each", which is not coming from the excel table value, the output from value of "Apply to each" action:

So, if I select the title dynamic content inside the loop, flow will need to generate the second apply to each action so that it can capture all of the array data to display them:

Hope this can help to explain.

Best Regards,

Hen Wang