Power Automate: SharePoint – When an item is created or modified Trigger

SharePoint list items change a lot, and it’s handy to know when they do. So today, we’ll check the “When an item is created or modified” trigger that helps us to know when changes happen in the list and act on them.

Where to find it?

To find it, you can search for SharePoint “When an item is created or modified” trigger or go to “SharePoint”:

Then select the trigger:

Here’s what it looks like:

Let’s look at how to use it.

Usage

The setup is quite simple. You pick your site and list, and Power Automate does all the work. You can also choose a view limiting the columns that SharePoint will return. Limiting lists with many rows and columns makes things a lot faster and easier to manage your Flow.

Please note that the “When an item is created or modified” will not trigger deleted items. Instead, you have a separate trigger, “When an item is deleted,” to deal with that.

Outputs

The trigger returns a lot of information in a JSON format, although the conversion from JSON is done automatically for you. Here’s an example:

{
    "headers": {
        "Transfer-Encoding": "chunked",
        "Retry-After": "21600",
        "Vary": "Origin,Accept-Encoding",
        "X-SharePointHealthScore": "1",
        "X-MS-SPConnector": "1",
        "X-SP-SERVERSTATE": "ReadOnly=0",
        "DATASERVICEVERSION": "3.0",
        "SPClientServiceRequestDuration": "175",
        "SPRequestGuid": "ef806fa7-6a4c-4434-883e-ff5466a91761",
        "request-id": "0c60ef00-24f5-11ec-9621-0242ac130002",
        "MS-CV": "<redacted>",
        "Strict-Transport-Security": "max-age=31536000",
        "X-FRAME-OPTIONS": "SAMEORIGIN",
        "Content-Security-Policy": "frame-ancestors 'self' teams.microsoft.com *.teams.microsoft.com *.skype.com *.teams.microsoft.us local.teams.office.com *.powerapps.com *.yammer.com *.officeapps.live.com *.office.com *.stream.azure-test.net *.microsoftstream.com;",
        "MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices": "16.0.0.21722",
        "X-Content-Type-Options": "nosniff",
        "X-MS-InvokeApp": "1; RequireReadOnly",
        "Timing-Allow-Origin": "*",
        "x-ms-apihub-cached-response": "true",
        "Cache-Control": "max-age=0, private",
        "Date": "Mon, 04 Oct 2021 09:24:15 GMT",
        "Location": "<redacted>",
        "P3P": "CP=\"ALL IND DSP COR ADM CONo CUR CUSo IVAo IVDo PSA PSD TAI TELo OUR SAMo CNT COM INT NAV ONL PHY PRE PUR UNI\"",
        "X-AspNet-Version": "4.0.30319",
        "X-Powered-By": "ASP.NET",
        "Content-Type": "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        "Expires": "Sun, 19 Sep 2021 09:24:15 GMT",
        "Last-Modified": "Mon, 04 Oct 2021 09:24:15 GMT",
        "Content-Length": "1808"
    },
    "body": {
        "@odata.etag": "\"1\"",
        "ItemInternalId": "4",
        "ID": 4,
        "Title": "Created",
        "Modified": "2021-10-04T09:24:14Z",
        "Created": "2021-10-04T09:24:14Z",
        "Author": {
            "@odata.type": "#Microsoft.Azure.Connectors.SharePoint.SPListExpandedUser",
            "Claims": "i:0#.f|membership|manuel@manueltgomes.com",
            "DisplayName": "Manuel Gomes",
            "Email": "manuel@manueltgomes.com",
            "Picture": "https://manueltgomescom.sharepoint.com/sites/Test/_layouts/15/UserPhoto.aspx?Size=L&AccountName=manuel@manueltgomes.com",
            "Department": null,
            "JobTitle": null
        },
        "Author#Claims": "i:0#.f|membership|manuel@manueltgomes.com",
        "Editor": {
            "@odata.type": "#Microsoft.Azure.Connectors.SharePoint.SPListExpandedUser",
            "Claims": "i:0#.f|membership|manuel@manueltgomes.com",
            "DisplayName": "Manuel Gomes",
            "Email": "manuel@manueltgomes.com",
            "Picture": "https://manueltgomescom.sharepoint.com/sites/Test/_layouts/15/UserPhoto.aspx?Size=L&AccountName=manuel@manueltgomes.com",
            "Department": null,
            "JobTitle": null
        },
        "Editor#Claims": "i:0#.f|membership|manuel@manueltgomes.com",
        "{Identifier}": "Lists%252fCreatedAndModified%252f4_.000",
        "{IsFolder}": false,
        "{Thumbnail}": {
            "Large": null,
            "Medium": null,
            "Small": null
        },
        "{Link}": "<redacted>",
        "{Name}": "Created",
        "{FilenameWithExtension}": "Created",
        "{Path}": "Lists/CreatedAndModified/",
        "{FullPath}": "Lists/CreatedAndModified/4_.000",
        "{HasAttachments}": false,
        "{VersionNumber}": "1.0",
        "{TriggerWindowStartToken}": "<redacter>",
        "{TriggerWindowEndToken}": "<redacted>"
    }
}

A lot is happening here, but we only need to focus on the “body” part. It’s similar to other everyday actions like the “Get items” action. First, we’ll get all columns from the SharePoint list.

Since the returns are the same, there’s an easy way to understand if the item was created or updated. Since SharePoint considered the creation of a file as a modification, both dates will be the same. So you can have a “Condition” action that separates both behaviors.

Power Automate will only return the last changes. Suppose you want to understand how to get the previous versions of items in SharePoint lists. In that case, I have a template and a detailed explanation of how to do it in my “How to get previous versions in SharePoint” article.

Limitations

Although Microsoft is quite clear on the behavior, it’s configuring to pick views without filtering the data. The label is clear “Limit Columns by View,” but I think it would be amazing to have a filtered list and only trigger if the elements of that list were updated.

Recommendations

Here are some things to keep in mind.

Always pick from the list.

Always pick the site address and the list name from the list. You’ll be able to define them manually, but doing that has no added value.

Don’t use this for synchronization.

I see many questions regarding synchronization between SharePoint lists, and the “When an item is created or modified “trigger is an excellent target to catch items that need replication. But I would strongly suggest that you not do it. Synchronization of items is an amazingly complex topic in computer science, and we are all super when something doesn’t synchronize properly. If the trigger fails, data will be out of sync, and Power Automate won’t rerun it. If the data is changed on the destination list, you already have a problem that will only worsen over time.

Name it correctly

The name is super important since we can get the trigger from anywhere and with anything. Always build the word so others can understand your use without opening the action and checking the details.

Always add a comment.

Adding a comment will also help to avoid mistakes. Indicate your expectations, why the Flow should be triggered, and the data used. It’s essential to enable faster debugging when something goes wrong.

Back to the Power Automate Trigger Reference.

Photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash