Get libraries filtered by content type in SharePoint Online flow

Question

I have a SharePoint Online site that contains several document libraries, some of which use a custom content type named, "Legal." And the Legal content type contains a metadata field named, "Purge Date." I need to produce a flow (using us.flow.microsoft.com) that updates deletes documents on their Purge Date, but only for those libraries that use the Legal content type. I have successfully used the "Get files (properties only)" action to get and interrogate files from a document library, but I have to hard-code the library name. I tried using the "Get all lists and libraries" action to iterate through the lists and libraries, then pass the library name to a "Get files (properties only)" action, but that has not worked for me.

My most recent attempt looks like this:

The Get all lists and libraries action looks like this:

I then use the Filter array action to filter the lists and libraries based on content type.

I then use an "Apply to each" action to find files whose Purge Date equals today's date (I have the date hard-coded, for now):

No files are being deleted, so I added logic the "If no" branch to update the document's Title field with a a debug statement, but don't know how to access the Title field:

Do you think I'm on the right path? Do you recommend a different approach? Thanks!

Answer 1

You are on the right path for sure! So the logic is sound, just a few ins and outs you need to be aware of and learn. But if you can get your head around a flow like this a lot of possibilities will open up!

I did a quick and dirty POC of what you want to do and below is a screen shot and some comments. It does what you want: Iterate libraries on a site, for each library it gets all files and filter out any not with the correct content type and then finally check if the date field is a specific date.

Over all the flow looks like this (almost similar to yours):

1. Get all list and libraries

2. Insert an Apply to each and put the "Value" called outputs('Get_files_(properties_only)')?['body/value'] in the Select an output field.

3. Insert an action Get File properties and in the library name you put "DisplayName" value from the Get all lists and libraries action.

4. Insert a Filter Array action and in the "From" control you put the Value from the Get file properties, in the first Value control you put this expression to get the name of the content type:

   item()['{ContentType}']['Name']

and in the last Value control you put the name of the content type (in my case its called "MyCT"). 5.Still inside the Apply to each library loop from step 2 you add another Apply to each loop to iterate through all documents with the correct content type. So in the Select value from control you put the body from the Filter array action. 6. In the Apply to each document loop you put a Condition action, and in the first Value control you put the following expression

item()['MyDateColumn']

where the "MyDateColumn" is the internal name of the date column. And in the second Value control you insert the date you want to check for. 7. Finally update the document metadata in true cases as per you requirements.

In case you dont know, you insert an expression by clicking on the little "fx" icon that appears when you click inside an action control.