Introduction
In the earlier version of Sharepoint, the business process automation could be done through the desinger worfklows, like Visual Studio Workflows or Third Party Workflow tools, such as K2 & Nintex. Since Microsoft has adapted the modern system into practice, all the earlier methods of workflow development have been replaced with Microsoft Flow, developing a process or application with complete no code solutions. Even without the help of developers, the End Users can easily adapt and develop their own needed business process worflows. Microsoft Flow helps non-developers work smarter by automating workflows across apps and services.
In this article, we will see how to fetch mutiple column values from the SharePoint list and how it needs to be sent to a CSV table and generate a report for the analysis or various purposes and how it needs to be shared with the end users.
Key things in Flow
While developing a flow, these are the main things the flow primarily consists of:
- Trigger or Event
Normally, in SharePoint Desginer workflows, the workflow will be triggered when the item is created or modified or manually. Whereas in the Flow, it can be associated to various events, such as Item Created or Modified, Folder Created or Modified etc.
- Actions
The flow possesses the N number of bundled actions. In the earlier versions of designer workflows, the actions are restrcited only to the SharePoint system whereas in the Flow, we are able to connect to various different platforms, such as Slack, Service Bus, One Drive etc.
- Conditional Logic
Based on the business use cases and scenarios, the flow can either have logic or may not have conditional logics.
Step 1 - Create a new MS flow
Link
https://india.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/
In the left navigation pane, go to My flows -> New -> Automate from blank.
Step 2 - Workflow Instance Name & Triggering Config
In our case, we have provided the Workflow name as "Generate a CSV Table using Microsoft Flow".
We haven't selected the Trigger options, we skipped it (Manual Run).
Step 3 - Flow Action Creation And Configuration
In the search box, select after which action the flow needs to be excecuted. In our case, I have selected manually (i.e, Flow will be triggered manually).
Step 3a - Get Items from SharePoint List
We are fetching the Items from various clumns in the Sharepoint List and binding into CSV Table.
Step 3b - CSV Table Creation
In the Data Operations, Select * From - Select the List Items Value from the list.
Map
Provide the Key & Value. In our case, for Name, we have mapped the Name Column. Similarly, for the required columns, we need to do the mapping.
Post Select Operation, the output will be provided as an input for the CSV Table Creation Action.
Step 3c - HTML Table Creation
In order to display the CSV output in a row and column. The CSV table output needs to supply as an input to the HTML table which will create the result in HTML Table and Rows.
Step 3d - Send Mail Action
Send the details as mail to the any receipents and check for the mail in Outlook or Web Mail box.
Note
IsHTML should be changed to Yes. Then only the output values are displayed in the HTML format or else the output will have a clumsy feel.
Step 4 - Run & Test
Before running the flow, it will show what the connection objects are and the permissions that are going to be used in this and require our approval.
Summary
This concludes our article. Here is a quick recap of topics which we discussed.
- Introduction to Flow
- Flow Key Things.
- UseCase for the CSV Action.
- Flow Implementation.
Happy Learning!!!