While working on a leave request application, I needed to update a SharePoint list item from another SharePoint list using Power Automate. There are two different SharePoint lists. Such as:
- Employee Leave Balance Management: Here, the HR team updates the leave balances of each employee.
- Employee Leave Balance Details: This contains all the information about leaves, such as Leaves Available, Leaves Used, and Total Leaves.
I want to use Power Automate to update the data on the second list [Employee Leave Balance Details] annually beginning on [January 1st], depending on the first list [Employee Leave Balance Management].
Let’s see how to achieve it step by step.
Update a SharePoint List Item from another SharePoint List Using Power Automate
Before creating the flow, you must have two SharePoint lists. For this example, I created two SharePoint lists with the following columns and data types:
Employee Leave Balance Management:
| Columns | Data Types |
|---|---|
| Employee Name | Person or Group |
| Sick Leaves | Number |
| Annual Leaves | Number |
| Compassionate Leaves | Number |
Employee Leave Balance Details:
| Columns | Data Types |
|---|---|
| Employee Name | Person or Group |
| Sick Leaves Available | Number |
| Sick Leaves Used | Number |
| Total Sick Leaves | Number |
| Annual Leaves Available | Number |
| Annual Leaves Used | Number |
| Total Annual Leaves | Number |
| Compassionate Leaves Available | Number |
| Compassionate Leaves Used | Number |
| Total Compassionate Leaves | Number |
| Total Leaves | Number |
| Total Balance | Number |
| Total Leaves Used | Number |
1. Sign in to Power Automate with valid credentials. Then click on + Create and Select Scheduled cloud flow. Enter the Flow name, and under Run this flow, provide the information below.
- Starting: Select the date. From which date the flow will start?
- at: Provide the time the flow will run.
- Repeat every: Provide the interval. In my case, I want my flow to run every year, so I select 12 months.
2. Then, add a Get items action and provide parameters such as Site Address and List Name. You can also change the action name to make it easier to identify. I named it Get items | Leave Balance Management.
3. Then add again the Get items action for Employee Leave Balance Details and provide parameters such as Site Address and List Name. You can also change the action name to Get items | Leave Balance Details.
4. Now, I will add a Condition action that compares the two-person column emails in two different SharePoint lists. while adding, it will automatically take a For each loop. check the screenshot below.
5. While I put the employee email in the equal to section, it will automatically take another for each loop. Check the screenshot below.
6. Then, inside the first for each loop, we need to store five things from Employee Leave Balance Management using the help of the compose action.
| Name | Inputs |
|---|---|
| ID | item?[‘ID’] |
| Employee Email ID | item?[‘EmployeeName’]?[‘Email’] |
| Sick Leaves | item?[‘SickLeaves’] |
| Annual Leaves | item?[‘AnnualLeaves’] |
| Compassionate Leaves | item?[‘CompassionateLeaves’] |
For all the input values, I am taking from dynamic content.
7. Now open the Condition action and add the output of the employee email id Compose action.
8. Then, inside the true section, add an update item action to provide the Site Address, List name, and Id as output of the Compose | ID.
9. After that, in the Advanced parameters, select the column name you want to update in SharePoint. Here, I want to update the column with the expression Check the table below.
| Column name | Expression |
|---|---|
| Sick Leaves Available | add(item()?[‘SickLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Sick_Leaves’)) |
| Sick Leaves Used | int(0) |
| Total Sick Leaves | add(item()?[‘SickLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Sick_Leaves’)) |
| Annual Leaves Available | add(item()?[‘AnnualLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Annual_Leave’)) |
| Annual Leaves Used | int(0) |
| Total Annual Leaves | add(item()?[‘AnnualLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Annual_Leave’)) |
| Compassionate Leaves Available | add(item()?[‘CompassionateLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Compassionate_Leave’)) |
| Compassionate Leaves Used | int(0) |
| Total Compassionate Leaves | add(item()?[‘CompassionateLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Compassionate_Leave’)) |
| Total Leaves | add(add(add(item()?[‘SickLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Sick_Leaves’)),add(item()?[‘AnnualLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Annual_Leave’))),add(item()?[‘CompassionateLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Compassionate_Leave’))) |
| Total Balance | add(add(add(item()?[‘SickLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Sick_Leaves’)),add(item()?[‘AnnualLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Annual_Leave’))),add(item()?[‘CompassionateLeavesAvailable’],outputs(‘Compose_|_Compassionate_Leave’))) |
| Total Leaves Used | int(0) |
Once the Flow is ready, we will move forward to run the Flow.
Run the flow to update the SharePoint list Item from another SharePoint list
Now click on ‘Save,’ then click ‘Test’ and select ‘Manually’ to run the test. You will see that the flow ran successfully.
After that, go to the Employee Leave Balance Details SharePoint list. You will see that the leave balance has been successfully updated.
I hope you follow all the steps to update the SharePoint list item from another SharePoint list in Power Automate.
Also, you may like some more Power Automate articles:
- Update SharePoint list items using Power Automate
- Send Approval Requests to Outlook and Teams Using Power Automate
- Update SharePoint list item only one field using Power Automate
- Conditionally Update SharePoint list items using Power Automate
After working for more than 18 years in Microsoft technologies like SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI), I thought will share my SharePoint expertise knowledge with the world. Our audiences are from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. For my expertise knowledge and SharePoint tutorials, Microsoft has been awarded a Microsoft SharePoint MVP (12 times). I have also worked in companies like HP, TCS, KPIT, etc.
