How to use Microsoft Lists with Power Automate

Image: monticellllo/Adobe Stock Somedays, it looks like our whole workday is filled with manual tasks like passing details back and forth between individuals or departments. For many IT support professionals, for instance, their days are filled with compiling IT problems from e-mails, texts and voicemail and after that going into that details into a tracking database.

Frequently, somebody should be contacted us to get more info about their request, and already, you have more assistance calls coming in. It bores work that’s open to problems such as losing a demand or not having all of the essential details to rapidly solve concerns. To address these problems in assistance workflows, consider producing a submission type that immediately passes updates by means of a Power Automate circulation.

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In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to produce a basic option for this circumstance that includes Microsoft Lists, Microsoft Forms and Microsoft Power Automate. You’ll likewise require to be part of your organization’s SharePoint environment. If you have these apps, then you’re on SharePoint even if you do not realize it, however you may need to talk to your administrator about your current user authorizations.

For this tutorial, I’m utilizing a Windows 10 64-bit system. All 3 apps we’re talking about are free with some Microsoft 365 licenses.

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Establishing your Microsoft Lists feed with Microsoft Forms

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Rather of losing IT concern requests through an archaic system of call, texts and e-mail, we desire a system that collects and stores IT issue requests immediately. To that end, we’ll create an online type that permits users to submit an issue utilizing Microsoft Forms. When a user sends out data utilizing the kind, Power Automate will update a list developed in Microsoft Lists. IT will use this list to track issues.

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The list might seem unneeded due to the fact that Microsoft Forms collects information utilizing a Microsoft Excel workbook; you could just utilize the underlying.xlsx file and skip this step. Nevertheless, that won’t always be a good solution, so we’re going to use these apps to be safe.

The first piece of this solution is the list that IT will utilize to track problems.

How to produce a list in Microsoft Lists

The easiest method to get a list up and running in Microsoft Lists is to import content from an existing source or to utilize one of the app’s templates. Feel free to deal with your own information, but for this presentation, we’ll use a template to lower the amount of preparation:

Sign-in to your Microsoft account, and use the App Launcher to launch Microsoft Lists.
In Microsoft Lists, click New List at the top.
In the resulting window, click Problem Tracker (Figure A).

Figure A

Choose a design template. The next window displays the template structure (Figure B)with sample data. Take a moment to examine the columns. When working with your own information, you might include or get rid of columns, but that’s a lot easier than starting from scratch. Click Usage Design Template.

Figure B

Evaluation the template. In the next window, get in info about the new list. You can change the name if you like, include a description and modification visual residential or commercial properties(Figure C). For demonstration purposes, you can keep the defaults, however I entered a basic description.

Figure C

Name the list, and choose visual homes and a storage site. Click Develop to create the list displayed in Figure D.

Figure D

Use a design template in Microsoft Lists to produce a quick example list. Prior to you leave the list, here’s an idea that will serve you well when utilizing Power Automate with SharePoint files. I suggest you copy the SharePoint URL to the Clipboard or into a text document– you may require it later on.

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In Microsoft Lists, click the Settings gear in the top-right corner, and then, click the List Settings link. Then, copy the Web Address shown in Figure E. Copy just the SharePoint address, up to however not consisting of the/ List part in the course.

Figure E

Copy the address to the Clipboard or a text document for later usage. At this point, it’s fine that the list is empty. We’ll utilize Power Automate to upgrade the list, however initially, we require information.

How to develop a submission form using Microsoft Forms

We’ll be using Power Automate to update the list you simply created, but we need information to make this work. There are numerous methods to gather information into a Microsoft Lists list, but Microsoft Forms is one of the easiest to utilize.

If you’re not acquainted with it, do not stress. When you have actually worked through this basic example, Microsoft Forms might become one of your preferred apps.

With your list in location, let’s create a form to collect data for two columns:

Click App Launcher, and pick Kinds. If essential, click More Apps at the bottom of the very first apps list. You can access Apps Launcher from your brand-new list, so you don’t require to circumnavigate looking for it.
In the next window, click Brand-new Type.
In the following window, name the type, and enter a significant description (Figure F).

Figure F

Name the new form.

Click Include New, and specify the first control as Text. Enter a title for the first question:

What is the concern? Click the Long Answer and Needed settings (Figure G).

Figure G

Make it possible for the two settings. Click Include New. Using the above guidelines, add a 2nd text field for the problem description, other than in step five, enter the following text: Please explain the issue you’re presently experiencing. Make certain to make it possible for both settings if required.

In action six, you must have enabled the Needed setting. Because of this choice, the form will not send gathered information up until the user enters a value. This requires the user to send out all the info you require in the first demand, restricting the variety of callbacks per ticket.

For our purposes, passing 2 text values is enough to get the essence of how Power Automate and Microsoft Lists can interact. The next action is to develop a Power Automate flow that moves the information from the form to the list.

How to create a circulation utilizing Power Automate

We presently have a type to gather info and a list to store that info. Now, let’s develop a Power Automate circulation to move collected kind data to the list.

If you’re not familiar with Power Automate, it’s effective and flexible however likewise simple to execute. If you want to find out how to use Power Automate, invest a little time finding the various connectors, triggers and actions that are readily available.

We require a circulation that a user triggers when sending information. Here are the actions to develop that flow:

Using the App Launcher, launch Power Automate.
Click Produce in the left pane.
Browse down, and click the Microsoft Forms port.
In the first card, select the new kind from the When A New Action Is Sent dropdown (Figure H).

Figure H

Select an action. Click New Action. For our purposes, go into get response details in the search control to update the list of actions and triggers (Figure I).

Figure I

Choose Get Action Information. Pick the tracking kind from the dropdown. The Response ID will be unique for each form submission. For this factor, we’ll use the dynamic control to identify this worth. Click the Add Dynamic Control link if essential to show a list of possible settings. There’s just one, so click Action ID to enter it as the Response ID value (Figure J).

Figure J

Utilize a dynamic value setting. Click New Action. In the next search control, get in Produce Product to recognize what Power Automate will do with the passed action worths– it will produce a new item in the Microsoft Lists list developed previously.

Click Develop Item in the lower pane, making certain it’s a SharePoint action. Microsoft Lists does not have a SharePoint port, but Microsoft Lists and SharePoint lists are the very same internally, so the SharePoint port also deals with Microsoft Lists.

The next card uses a lot of alternatives. First, choose your SharePoint site. If your SharePoint site isn’t listed in the dropdown, copy the URL you conserved previously into this control. Alternatively, you can go back to your list and get the URL using the Settings if you didn’t copy the URL earlier. Keep in mind to delete whatever from/ Lists to the end.

Using dynamic fields, map the type fields to the list fields (Figure K).

Figure K

Select the SharePoint website. Click Save. At this point, we have three components, and we’re prepared to use them to instantly move collected form information to a list.

How to upgrade your list in Microsoft Lists

Now, we’re going to use a Microsoft Forms form to update a list in Microsoft Lists. We’ll do this by triggering a Power Automate flow when the kind submits brand-new information. To see how they all work together, open the issue tracking kind in sneak peek mode, add the worths such as those shown in Figure L and click Submit. If the tab is still open, click the tab, and after that, click Preview.

Figure L

Submit a new tracking record through the online kind. Utilizing the App Launcher, open the problem tracking list. If your tab is still open, just click the tab to see the list displayed in Figure M. As you can see, the circulation copied the information you entered into the form to shop in the list.

Figure M

The flow updated the list. Putting it

all together Utilizing three elements to pass IT problems might look like overkill, however if you remain in a busy organization, it doesn’t take wish for calls, texts and emails to start falling through fractures.

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Numerous companies have a ticket-type tracking file. Which’s basically what we’ve created here; although, there’s no ticket number exchange, which is something you may wish to include. For instance, you may wish to send an e-mail to somebody on the IT group every time a record is contributed to the list. These are things you’ll wish to think about including when tailoring a circulation for your own work.

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