Null issues with condition

[mmollet]

I have been fighting this issue for about an hour now. I have never had this many issues with a flow let alone such a short and 'simple' flow. I am trying to do the following:

Get The 11 rows from sharepoint list

filter out the ones with null in a certain row

loop through the non null items I kept

if the current day is 3 days past the date stored in taht rows CheckedOutOn column then send that user an email.

I have the 11 items coming in using get items call

I have the filter array working and narrowing it down to my 4 test items that it should pull

I have the Apply to each loop getting and looping through the correct 4 items. 

The issue comes when I try to do the conditional statement and i get the following error no matter what I have tried to do:

InvalidTemplate. Unable to process template language expressions for action 'Condition' at line '0' and column '0': 'The template language function 'formatDateTime' expects its first parameter to be of type string. The provided value is of type 'Null'. Please see https://aka.ms/logicexpressions#formatdatetime for usage details.'.

All the values that the flow uses have values in the SP List as well. 

Here is the code for the condition block that is throwing the error:

formatDateTime(utcNow(), 'MM/dd/yyyy')

is greater than or equal to 

addDays(formatDateTime(item()?['CheckedOutOn'], 'MM/dd/yyyy'), 3)

I also tried -> addDays(formatDateTime(items('Apply_to_each')?['CheckedOutOn'], 'MM/dd/yyyy'), 3) thinking it was getting confused on the apply to each but since there is only one a disabiguation shouldnt be needed... either way that did nothing. I have rebuilt the flow 2 times and still get the same issues. Tried using filter query and order and top count just to see if it had any different results and it didnt. 

Any help is appreciated and TYIA!

[David_MA]

One issue is that you need to use the ISO8601 date format for conditional expressions, which is yyyy-MM-dd. Using the expressions formatted this way works for me:

Checked out date (note, I tested this in a trigger flow, so you will need to replace triggerBody()['date'] with your dynamic content:

addDays(triggerBody()['date'],3,'yyyy-MM-dd')

And to generate the current date (what I am calling Trigger Date):

formatDateTime(utcNow(),'yyyy-MM-dd')

In the flow (on the left of the condition is the trigger date and on the right is the checked-out date):

Of course, you can adjust this as needed if I misread what you need. In the trigger, if I use May 26 for the checked-out date, it returns true as you are expecting:

[wskinnermctc]

Try adding the days to the column, then formatting it to compare.

Instead of

addDays(formatDateTime(item()?['CheckedOutOn'], 'MM/dd/yyyy'), 3)

Try

formatDateTime(addDays(item()?['CheckedOutOn'], 3),'MM/dd/yyyy')

Is the column "Checked Out On" a datetime type column?

[mmollet]

Unable to process template language expressions for action 'Condition' at line '0' and column '0': 'The template language function 'addDays' expects its first parameter to be a string that contains the time. The provided value is of type 'Null'.

Your question "Is the column "Checked Out On" a datetime type column?" just made me think of something. I am not icluding time in the column on SP... could that be the issue?? never thought it would be but now idk tbh. 😛

UPDATE: changing the column made no effect that I could see on the flow. Still getting an error: 

Unable to process template language expressions for action 'Condition' at line '0' and column '0': 'The template language function 'addDays' expects its first parameter to be a string that contains the time. The provided value is of type 'Null'.

[wskinnermctc]

Your field from SharePoint must be blank or empty if it is giving the Null response.

I just tried the expression and didn't have a problem. My SP Column is a DateTime type column (but doesn't show time, but that automatically adds 12:00am date in power automate.)

I have a compose with just the column value. Then under it I have a compose with the addDays() expression on the column.

The flow ran and the results are below.

You need to check where that value is coming from and see why it isn't being pulled into PA. 

[mmollet]

This is the SP List the data is coming from. All values in those 4 rows that it is accessing have data. This was one of the first things I checked for hoping for an easy fix.

The filter Get Items step gets all 11. Then the filter array step with CheckedOutBy -> is not equal to -> null results in the correct 4 rows being kept and the others being removed. Then the apply to each step runs 4 times, once over each item. This is where the error is thrown as for some reason it is finding null values... yet in my SP List there are quite obviously values in the columns it is saying are empty. 

I have remade the flow 2 times.

I have use filter query on Get Items.

I have filtered by 2 diff columns. (CheckedOutBy of type string and CheckedOutOn of type datetime (no time tho))

I have added another condition to try to break up the logic.

I have used items('Apply_to_each')?... instead of item() thinking it needed a disambiguation of some kind.

None of the above changed the results.

I am going to try to use some compose statements to figure this out now I suppose.

[wskinnermctc]

I think I know the problem. It would be more helpful with a full screenshot of the flow.

If you have the steps:

Get Items

Filter Array

You have to use the "Filter Array" outputs for anything else in the flow.

If you use the "Get Items", it is not filtered by the filter array step. It is just like if the Filter Array doesn't exist. Each step is it's own body of data to reference in the flow.

The Apply to Each should use the values from "Filter Array".

Does that seem like what is going on with your flow?

Here is a quick example. 

I had to manually write in the column name in an expression to get a value out of the Filter Array in the Compose step since a Filter Array doesn't have dynamic content.

It is basically an expression written as item()?['ColumnName']

[mmollet]

And yet again the flow throws the same error when using a compose...Here is the code:

addDays(items('Apply_to_each_2')?['CheckedOutOn'], 3)

There is something wrong with my SP list I am convinced. The values show up and look like they are there but the flow cannot see them. It sees the columns but not the values in said columns somehow. 

I checked from Power Apps using a gallery filtering the same way I would in the flow and here is what it showed:

Gallery showed all 11 items as expect

All checkedoutby values were showing in the gallery as expected

None of the checkedouton values were showing yet they are in the SP list...

Any ideas what could be happening? I have never had a SP List show values that were not actually there and continue to do so for hours on end even through browser reset/clear of cache/history. This is crazy and idk how to fix this really. I am going to try to blank those values in the SP List then reassign values after that i guess.

[wskinnermctc]

Edited: See my previous post above.

[mmollet]

Finally got it working and sending emails as it was supposed to...

What I noticed digging into the SP List:

There were columns that I had deleted still in the column list that would not go away.

The current column I had would not delete.

I added a new column and connected it to Power Apps to test and it would be found but have no values as well.

Tried with and without time, with and without formatting, same errors.

I then tried to use compose blocks as debugging tools and noticed a mismatch in format. Fixed that and still errors.

What I ended up doing was make a completely new list by copying the old list. When I did this none of the columns that I had made were there and none of the columns I had deleted were there. The values I had changed were also not there and the old values were back. I added my new rows and data and now its working perfectly with my original solution combined with @wskinnermctc's formatting idea b/c I liked his better anyway. 

Anyone have any idea wtf would cause somthing this weird? It was like my list was just not working at all. There was no way to edit its fields or its data even though on the front end it was acting like it was doing all those things as it should. Never had anything remotely this weird happe with a SP List. I will close this tomorrow just wanting to get some feedback first.