Microsoft Flow

Microsoft Power Automate Flow Trigger Conditions

Microsoft Power Automate Flow Trigger Conditions

It’s common to use the ‘When an item is created or modified’ trigger when creating Flows for SharePoint with Power Automate. This can be a very chatty trigger as every change can result in the Flow executing. Users can utilize Conditions, Scopes, and Run After settings within the Flow logic to determine if they should really act on an item. This still results in yet another unhelpful entry within the Run History.

Leveraging Trigger Conditions offers the option to check Trigger Properties and additional logic to determine if the Flow should run at all. Users can continue to use the same Trigger while streamlining both Flow logic and Run History.

Trigger Conditions are found by selecting the menu from the three dots or ellipsis in the upper right-hand corner of the Trigger Card. Once there, look to Settings, then at the bottom, Trigger Conditions. Users can add more than one Condition and that the Trigger will only run when the Conditions of which at least one must evaluate as True.

Since the Dynamic Content menu isn’t available at this point, users must use the available Functions. Whatever expression is entered should return a Boolean value. A non-Null value like an Object or Number won’t allow the Flow to run at all.

Expression Result Type Valid Condition
@add(1, 0) Integer No
@true Boolean Yes
@equals(1, 1) Boolean Yes
@json(triggerBody()) Object No

Note that List One which has two Content Types with differing Fields. Item has only the Title column and Item 2 adds the Example column.

Content Type Fields
Item Title
Item 2 Title, Example

Normally, users would have no means of filtering processed items within the Trigger with When an item is created or modified as no OData filtering is provided. By using the following Trigger Condition, users can ensure Flow doesn’t process any items where Example is missing data.

Two Compose actions are added to show the values of the Content Type and Example properties of the triggering items. When the Test functionality is used, three scenarios can be run:

Item Content Type:

Create a new Item which has only the Title column; no processing should occur.

Item 2 Content Type Without Example Value:

Create a new Item 2 which has both Title and Example columns, complete only the Title; no processing should occur.

Item 2 Content Type With Example Value:

Create a new Item 2 which has both Title and Example columns, complete both; the Test