07-24-2023 10:13 AM
SharePoint Batch Update, Create, & Upsert Template
(Also an option for full dataset synchronizations with the "Full Sync" template below)
Compared to the using the basic Apply to Each, Get items, & Update item approach on large amounts of data, this method requires a small fraction of the API calls towards the daily action limit and drastically reduces flow run-times.
It's currently set to take data from any Excel sheet and update records in SharePoint with corresponding data. It works with any potential Power Automate data-source, including HTTP API GET requests, but Excel provides a simple example.
Part of it works like a Vlookup function where it identifies if a row of updated data in Excel or another datasource matches another SharePoint key column and gets the SharePoint record ID for that match. Then it uses the batch update method to update those SharePoint records and it uses the batch create method to create new items for any records without a match.
David Wyatt's Flow Optimization Post For Loading SharePoint Records: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-5-ways-optimize-your-flows-david-wyatt/?trackingId=X9bMmnTZ2QBuu4...
Microsoft Batch API Documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/sp-add-ins/make-batch-requests-with-the-rest-apis
TachyTelic.Net Blog & Videos
SharePoint Batch Create Flow
Blog: https://www.tachytelic.net/2021/06/power-automate-flow-batch-create-sharepoint-list-items/
Video: https://youtu.be/2dV7fI4GUYU
SharePoint Batch Delete Flow
Blog: https://www.tachytelic.net/2021/06/power-automate-delete-sharepoint-items/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ImkuGpEeoo
Version 2.7 - Upsert
-Includes a batch create segment to create an upsert capability. If anyone wants to only update records, then they can remove the Batch Create section. If anyone wants to only create records, then they can go to the GenerateSPData action, remove the expression for the ID field and insert the null value expression.
-Further simplifies the set-up, removing the need to add any additional SharePoint Get items actions & removing the need for parallel branches.
-Can now work on lists with a few million items without adding more actions or branches. It also implements a faster load method using the SharePoint HTTP action as described in point 5 of this article.
-The batch loops have been changed from Do until loops to chunking into Apply to each loops so the batch actions can now run concurrently for additional speed. If you have many batches of data you want to process faster, you can try increasing the concurrency settings on the Apply to each loops containing the SendBatch actions.
-The "setting" inputs action was moved to the top of the flow to help accommodate the new streamlined set-up.
-A SP HTTP call now automatically fixes some issues with referencing the correct list name.
-Faster list load time.
-If you need to batch create &/or update hyperlink columns, check this post
-Adds another HTTP call to get the site users into an object indexed/reference-able by email addresses & gives an example of how to use that to batch update a person column. Anytime the updated source dataset has a blank or an email value not found in the top 5000 site users, it will replace any person in that item with a null value.
Updated set-up screenshots & instructions in this post: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Cookbook/Batch-Update-SharePoint-List/m-p/2225500...
Full Sync V1.1 (Combined Upsert & Batch Deletion Sync)
The SharePoint Batch Full Sync template pulls in all the SP List & Source data to perform a batch upsert. But then it also adds on a Batch Deletion Sync to find & delete all the records in the SP List that are not in the Source dataset.
Now, this is initially set up to pull in all the datasource records for all batch actions in the same Do until Get source data loop. And that piece will be limited by the 100MB maximum message / variable size limits for Power Automate, so this Full Sync version will initially only work with datasources with a 100MB or less total size. But this is really only because I'm trying to keep the flow simpler for the majority of users who likely will not have datasources of many 100s of thousands of records.
If you want to further push out against this 100MB limitation, then you will need to separate out the source get data for the batch upsert section from another source get data for the batch deletion sync section. So for the batch upsert section you can use a set-up like in the main batch upsert template where it loads records with all columns 100,000 at a time (or 100 or 5000 or whatever your source dataset per load limitations are) and runs the batch upsert on each source load before running the Do until loop again to get the next source load (which avoids holding anywhere near 100MB in memory at once because it is performing things one load at a time). Then the batch deletion sync section can use a different source get data set-up similar to the "Do until Get destination list IDs + keys" section of the templates where each loop can pull a load from the source dataset & then use a Select action to select only a few of the columns to pass on to the variable holding everything in memory. Since deletions only require the primary key values, you can set the Select to only get the primary key column from each source data load & pass that onto the "Source data outputs" / variable. A full listing of all the primary key values in your source dataset will be much smaller than all columns for the entire table, so that 100MB limit should then hold a few million records worth of the required primary key data to run the batch deletion sync process.
Self Update (See the 1st comment below the main post for the zip download)
The SharePoint Self Batch Update assumes you just want to perform simple updates using only the existing data in the list and removes all the actions related to comparing two datasets to find updates. This may be much easier to use if you just want to quickly do something simple like get all the items created in the past month and mark them all with a Complete status.
But you will be limited to using just the data already in the list and any values you can manually input into the flow.
Version 1.5 - Update
This version makes it easier to handle cases where the list name may have changed since its creation and moves a few of the primary key column matching inputs to the 'settings' compose action so users don't have to look through & edit the more complicated expressions to set up the flow.
The flow can easily expand to any size of SharePoint list by adding more Get items actions and batch update parallel branches. If speed is a concern for anyone, there are ways to make the Get items actions all load in parallel too (up to 50 branches). It's really only limited by how much effort people want to put into their flows & lists.
Google Drive Link to Flow Zip Files: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10p7EB730xsEj-azVYuTIuu8dS0w-AflR/view?usp=sharing
Google Drive Link to Text File to a Scope Action Containing The Flow: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BVGoeM5mykYlMobAyFkhuLRh3r7jMSLz/view?usp=sharing
Version 1 - Update
Version 1 Explanation Video: https://youtu.be/l0NuYtXdcrQ
Download The Template Batch Update Flow
Google Drive Link to Flow Zip Files: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10gFkycdx6zpRfrI-s_jCDwIK6dpyyDqk/view?usp=sharing
Google Drive Link to Text File to a Scope Action Containing The Flow: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e6-INUykIT22ppVh5m4kxz8us_7qXy7q/view?usp=sharing
Formulas For Random Number Columns
SharePoint Rand1To50 Column Calculated Default Value Formula:
=INT(INT(RIGHT(NOW(),2))/2)
Excel Random Column Formula:
=ROUNDDOWN(((Rand()*100)+1)/2, 0)
If you have trouble importing any of the flows using the standard legacy import, you can also try importing a Power Apps Solutions package here: Re: Batch Update, Create, and Upsert SharePoint Li... - Page 25 - Power Platform Community (microsof...
Thanks for any feedback,
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watch?v=QCkjQy6sHZg
This worked. Thank you. However, one small issue, the update is subtracting one day to the SharePoint list, from the date entered in the excel spreadsheet.
Are you using the built in ISO date method in the Excel action or the date number & AddDays( ) expression method?
I am using the ISO date method, in the List rows present in a table.
@NickM10
Okay, if for any reason the ISO date method doesn't work, you can go back to the Excel action, deselect the ISO option & instead select the Serial Number option. Then for any date values in your GenerateSPData action, you can use the following expression to convert the serial numbers to the correct date value. And if it's off for some reason, then you can adjust the starting date in the expression to fix it...
addDays('1899-12-30', int(item()['InsertDateColumnNameHere']), 'u')
All of your suggestions worked however I still cannot get the SharePoint List to delete rows when they are deleted from the Excel table? Any suggestions?
That would require an additional section for the flow or separate flow entirely.
You essentially need something that finds all the records that exist in the SharePoint list that do not exist in the Excel table.
So for this flow you could set something that Selects just the primary key values from Excel & use a Filter array on the set of SharePoint IDs & Keys in the CombinedArray checking if Select outputs of Excel keys array Contains item()[‘PrimaryKeyColumnName’] to get all the SP ID & Key records that are not in Excel & thus need to be deleted. Then if there are only a few dozen of those records each time, it’s probably easiest to just run a standard Apply to each loop with a Delete item action.
I love this flow, thank you so much. I am not sure if someone already asked this (I read thru several comments) but I am having issues when I try to update a column in SharePoint with data type "Person or Group". The Excel file has a column assigned to which has the names of the people separated by semicolon and there are some rows that are empty . I accounted for the empty rows by adding an if statement if empty then null; however, I am getting this 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 have tried to pass the id (sometimes that works 🙂 ) or the email address but I still get that error. That only happens when I have columns in SharePoint with data type Person (or group). Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.
The Excel column looks like so:
Assigned to |
Alex Doe; Jane Doe; John Doe |
Alex Doe; Jane Doe; John Doe |
@Anonymous
Unfortunately updating Person columns usually requires a person id or a full claims object…
And getting these for each row defeats the purpose of batch processing because it requires looping again for each row.
Is it possible to switch to using something like plain text columns for assigned and/or assigned email addresses?
Maybe, I am not sure. The SharePoint list will be later used for reporting and/or filtering based on the assigned to column (person data type) and each user will have his/her own view-- with email/id/name as string of text would not really work. it is a very unfortunate since this works perfectly for what I am required to do but without the assigned to column I am not sure how else address this.
Thank you for this post!