How To Auto Increment An Existing Column In SharePoint Online (O365) Using Flow

What is Flow? 

Microsoft Flow is a set of rules that lets various apps communicate with each other automatically. Flow is used to automate processes and tasks.

It is more intuitive and easy to select. There are much more OOTB options available when you select Flow.

For example, you can save tweets that include a specific hashtag to a SharePoint list. Another example is for a new SharePoint list items in a specific list, post it to stack.

You can also select that whenever a new item is added to SharePoint list, you can do custom action.

The same way, whenever a list item gets modified, you can do a custom action.  All these are possible with Flow.

In SharePoint Online, Flow is present in the SharePoint List menu as highlighted. You can either create new flows or you can manage all the flows by clicking “See your Flows”.

Now, let’s see our requirement: Whenever an item is added to the List, you need to automatically increase the column value using MS Flow in SharePoint Online.

Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to achieve this.

This is possible with Workflow but in SharePoint Online - Office 365, it is very easy with the introduction of Flow: an alternative to Workflow.

There are 159 services being offered by MS Flow starting from connecting with SharePoint to Office 365, One Drive, Twitter, Outlook, Yammer, Excel and much more.

You can explore more about Flow here.

Step 1

Click on Flow drop-down and select "Create a flow".

Step 2

Once clicked, it will display multiple options; select "When a new item is added in SharePoint, complete a custom action".

Step 3

Click on Continue.

It will display your site address and selected List. Click on New --> Add An Action.

 

Step 4

Select Initialize Variable --> create a new variable and assign values from ID.

Step 5

Click on New Step --> add an Action -->  choose Increment Variable and Increment by 1  (it can be customized to your requirement).

Step 6

Click on New Step --> add an Action -->  choose SharePoint Updated Item.

Update the Item which matches the Current ID.

Step 6

Click on Save Flow.

That's it, you're all set.

Now, when you add a new Item, that column will have unique incremental value automatically.

This can be verified in the Flow history.