Microsoft Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) Workflow Automation
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Apply to each runs the steps inside it once for every item in an array: every list to create, every column to add, every row a search returned. This guide loops over a JSON array, reads the current item inside the loop, and nests a second loop over each item's own array.
The SharePoint connector has ready-made actions for items and files, but not for everything, such as creating a list with its columns. Send an HTTP request to SharePoint fills the gap: it calls SharePoint's REST API with your connection. It's part of the standard SharePoint connector, so it needs no premium license. This guide builds a first request that reads a site's title.
Compose holds a value for the rest of the flow: a number, some text, or a whole JSON document. Later actions use it as Outputs. It's the simplest way to keep a flow's settings in one place, and this guide uses it for exactly that.
You don't need to leave the designer to try a flow. Test runs it there, asks for any inputs, and shows each step's result on the canvas with how long it took. This guide tests an instant flow and reads what came back.
An instant flow can ask for a value every time someone starts it: a site address, a date, a name. You add the question to the Manually trigger a flow trigger as an input, and the rest of the flow uses the answer. This guide adds a text input and gives it a name and a description people understand.
A flow that has to move to another environment with its app belongs inside a solution. This guide creates an instant cloud flow, one that someone starts by hand, inside a solution, and then opens it in the new designer, which takes one extra step.
An object can belong to more than one solution, and sometimes it ends up in one it shouldn't. Remove from this solution takes it out of that solution and leaves the object itself, and every other solution it's in, alone. The command next to it deletes the object everywhere, so it's worth knowing which is which.
A flow in a solution doesn't connect to SharePoint directly. Each action points to a connection reference, and the connection reference points to a connection. When the solution is imported somewhere else, whoever imports it picks a connection for each reference, and the flow works there. This guide creates one inside a solution, before the flow that uses it.
I ran my setup flow a second time to prove it was safe to run again. Instead of finishing in seconds, it sat on Waiting for half an hour, then failed: Action 'Remove_Title_from_the_view' failed: BadGateway. Behind the 502 was SharePoint saying Invalid field name. The first run had already removed that column from the view, and asking again was an error that Power Automate retried for minutes at a time.
My flow failed with Invalid JSON. A token was not recognized in the JSON content. The JSON it sent looked fine in the designer. In the run, a false from my data had become False, with a capital F, which isn't JSON. An if() expression fixed it.
