Problem

It is simple to create a flow for ‘when item created or modified’ triggers. But the customer raise following questions.

How to create a Power Automate flow which can be manually triggered?

How can end user pass inputs to a manually triggered flow?

Step by Step solution

In fact answer is quite simple, there are triggers called ‘For a selected file‘ and ‘For a selected item‘

Let’s say we want to trigger ‘For a selected item’, once you select the correct site url and list you will see the following option.

For ‘Text’ type user input.

1. Provide the name of the input like Department
2. Provide the text so end user can see what the input is about.
3. Click on the ‘…’ to get various options for Text input. You can choose list of options if you want to limit the end user with defined choice, e.g. “HR”, “IT”, “Legal” etc.

Note: you can also leave it a Text where user will be asked to type the value.

For All user input type it is quite simple as seen below

Result

Once you have entered all required input type the end user can go the list or library and select a flow as following.

Problem

It is not a problem. The question is how to update a people field (single or multiple) in Power Automate using “Send an HTTP request to SharePoint” REST api?

To simplify the solution here are three fields in the SharePoint list. Let’s use a default template ‘When an item created’ trigger to update the first field OneApprover and MoreThanOneApprovers fields.

We have three test users

Step by Step solution

Step # 1

Use the following in the “Uri” field, note the email address and select of an ID.

NOTE: Please use Scope so that you can combine all the repetitive actions in one to get IDs.

_api/web/SiteUsers/getByEmail('DebraB@GOV019539.OnMicrosoft.com')?$select=Id

Note: Output of the above action will be following. We need to access the 'Id' value.

{
  "d": {
    "__metadata": {
      "id": "https://gov019539.sharepoint.com/sites/test/_api/Web/GetUserById(9)",
      "uri": "https://gov019539.sharepoint.com/sites/test/_api/Web/GetUserById(9)",
      "type": "SP.User"
    },
    "Id": 9
  }
}

Note: to access the Id value we will use the following formula in the Compose

body('Send_an_HTTP_request_to_SharePoint_to_get_Id_for_Debra')?['d']?['Id']

Step # 2

Now that we have an IDs of all there users we can call the POST method to update the two fields in the list.

Note: In the Uri field you will provide the following. This will invoke the call for the current list item,

_api/web/lists/GetByTitle('PeopleFieldDemo')/items('@{triggerBody()?['ID']}')

Note: In the headers section you will provide the following json.
TIP: click on the “T” circled as res to get in the text mode to copy and paste.

{
     "content-type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
     "IF-MATCH": "*",
     "X-HTTP-Method": "MERGE"
}

Now very important step i.e. to update people field.

Notes:

1: Update the list name from ‘PeopleFieldDemo’ to your list name.
2: The Compose outputs are IDs of the users. They are typically an integer values. You need to put your values.
3: Please make a note the single field is just assign one value with multiple it is an array
4: Notice the field name “OnePrrover” and “MoreThanIneApprover” there is a “Id” suffix.

{
    "__metadata": {
        "type":"SP.Data.PeopleFieldDemoListItem"
    },

    "OneApproverId": @{outputs('ComposeIdForDebra')},

    "MoreThanOneApproversId": {
         "results": [
                 @{outputs('ComposeIdForJohanna')},
                 @{outputs('ComposeIdForBob')}
          ]
    }
}

Result

The output of the list item will look like this in my case the IDs I have assigned.

Problem

It is not a problem. The question is how to update a hyperlink field in Power Automate using “Send an HTTP request to SharePoint” REST api?

To simplify the solution here are two fields in the SharePoint list. Let’s use a default template ‘When an item created’ trigger to update the second field “CompanyUrl” with a value of the clickable URL.

Step by Step solution

Step # 1

Use a trigger to start your work flow in this example ‘when an item is created’ with a Title field with some value e.g. Microsoft or Google.

Here is the formula in the Compose action for constructing an URL for CompanyUrl field.

Take a title value append ‘.com‘ and prepend ‘https://www.‘ This will create a full url as ‘https://www.{WHATEVER TITLE HAS}’.com‘

concat(
    'https://www.',
    concat(
        triggerOutputs()?['body/Title'],
        '.com'
    )
)

Step # 2

Provide the values for Site address, Method as ‘POST’ and Uri as following.

Note: the items has dynamic ID field.

_api/web/lists/GetByTitle('URLTesterList')/items('@{triggerOutputs()?['body/ID']}')

Step # 3

Provide the headers portion, you may copy paste from the following by clicking “T” symbol (green circle) on the far right of the headers. Simply copy these value to the headers section

{
     "content-type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
     "IF-MATCH": "*",
     "X-HTTP-Method": "MERGE"
}

Step # 4

Now this is an important step. If you notice in the following JSON string there is a “__metatdata” filed with type for your list the list name will be different. Please make a change in the type as highlighted in bold with your list name.

The required JSON value for the body section

{
    "__metadata": {
        "type":"SP.Data.URLTesterListListItem"
    },

    "CompanyUrl": {
              "__metadata": {
              "type":"SP.FieldUrlValue"
         },
         "Url":"@{outputs('ComposeURLValue')}",
         "Description": "@{outputs('ComposeURLValue')}"
     }
}

Result

Once the flow executes your should see the field CompanyUrl updated as following.

Problem

A customer complained that they used the following action to send an email with the image, but the email recipient cannot see an email in the outlook client.

Step by Step Solution

In summary you cannot send an SRC attribute to an url for the outlook client. To protect the users the outlook client will block the image url. You need to pass an image as base64 encoded SRC like the following.

Sample base64 img tag for the send email

<img 
       src="data:image/png;base64, *****" 
       alt="an image desc">
</img>

WHERE:
***** is the base64 long string.

Step #1:

Get a file from any library where your image resides. e.g. in SiteAssests library. The output of this action will be In the following format.

The output of the Get File content.

{
    "$content-type": "image/jpeg",
    "$content": ".9jsd…. LONG CHARACTERS IN BASE64"
}

Step #2:

Create a Compose action to get the SRC value for IMG tag with base64. The expression is a string concatenations.

Using concat function create the SRC attribute value.

concat (
    'data:image/png;base64, ',
    outputs('Get_file_content_suing_path')?['body']?['$content'])
)

Step # 3:

Use the above compose to send an email action.

IMG tag uses the SRC from the compose output.

<img
      src="outputs('Compose_to_make_SRC_of_image_a_base64')"
      alt="hey look I can work like this">
</img>

Result image was rendered in outlook client