Overview: One of the distinguishing factors between a news post versus a regular page is that news posts have the Promoted State column value set to ‘2’. There is no way to easily create a view to filter out this value to see all news posts only.

A Microsoft Flow is used to retrieve the Promoted State value. The reason for selecting the SharePoint – When an item is created or modified action (in Step 2 below) is that when the post/page doesn’t have a title, SharePoint will assign the post/page random characters until the Title has been added. Once the Title has been added, SharePoint will update the actual post/page with the actual Title and sometimes the Promoted State isn’t initially assigned to the column.

Brief Solution:

• Create a News column in the Site Pages library
• Create a Flow that checks if the Promoted State = 2. If Promoted State = 2, update the News column with value ‘Yes’
• Create a view called News Archive that filters the Site Pages library where the News column equals ‘Yes’

Detailed Solution:

1. In the Site Pages library, create a column called News. To keep it simple, choose Single line of text as the column value. (Choice could be used as the column type.)

2. Create a Flow to set the value of the News column when a news post is created.

Trigger: Even though Site Pages is a library and not a list, select the SharePoint – When an item is created or modified trigger, select the site, and type in “Site Pages” as a custom value. (Site Pages do not appear in the list of library type of triggers.)

3. Add a Condition action, Select the PromotedState column, leave the default as is equal to and type in ‘2’.

4. In the Yes branch, select the SharePoint – Update item action to set the Site Pages library News column as ‘Yes’.

5. Name the Flow and Save. The full Flow should look similar to this:

Make sure it’s turned on!

6. Back in the SharePoint Site Pages library, create a view called News Archive.

Filter the view to only show where News is equal to Yes (which will be set by the Flow).

Let’s Test!

Back on the Home Page (or a page with the News webpart), add a link to the News Archive view (or even a link to a Page with the News Archive view), then add a News post:

Add a Site Page:

The Site Pages library gets updated automatically by the Flow to flag news posts appropriately.

When the News Archive link is clicked on from the home page, only the news post items appear.

Thanks for reading!

Flow Scenario: This is an Event Request approval process that needs approval from a Manager first. Once the Manager approves the request, the Director receives an email to Approve or Reject the request.  The initiator then receives the final email that states if the request has been approved or rejected.

Plan Your Process Structure and Email Message Structure

It’s important to map out the business process with flow diagrams to help keep track of which Flows need to be created and thoroughly capture all business logic. Mapping out the strategy first helps to understand what needs to be built as a visual reference.

Mapping out what is required in the emails and consistently used across emails is important in the beginning as well. Advanced expressions can be used to display information in the email only if there is a value.

Create a SharePoint list

Create a Custom List called Event Request. This holds the Event details along with Manager and Director approvals.

Create another Custom List app called “Branding”. This list holds all the HTML/CSS Branding elements that will be used in the emails.

Columns used:

• The MessageOpening and MessageClosing <div> tags will be the container for the message.
• ApprovalLink contains a URL to my Dashboard. If the link changes in the list, all Flows are always pointing to the correct link.
• ManagerApprovedEvent and DirectorApprovedEvent will have green text for the event request status as being approved.
• ManagerRejectedEvent and DirectorRejectedEvent will have red text for the event request status as being rejected.
• Banner will have a background color and some additional formatting to the text.

Create Your Flow

Add a trigger for the EventRequest and an Action to get the Branding list.  These examples use the “When item is created (and/or modified)”, however, the Recurrence trigger can be used as well.

Using the Outlook Send an Email Action, add the SharePoint columns to the Message Body. All of the SharePoint columns from the Branding list are in the Get item section.

Be sure to select “Show Advanced options” and Select Is HTML “Yes”.

Use Expressions to Conditionally show content in the email only when the Manager or Director has added a comment. Otherwise, don’t include the information in the email.

Example formula will append the comment after the “Manager Approval Decision” text:

if(equals(triggerBody()?[‘ManagerDecision’], null), ”, concat(‘<strong>Manager Approval Decision:</strong> ‘, triggerBody()?[‘ManagerDecision’]))

Test the Flow

Label and rename the Actions, Conditions, Switches to make the Flows more readable.

Labeling the Subject line with “who” the email should be sent to is helpful with testing to ensure that the Flows are sending emails to the appropriate users.

Final Product

Initial Email with Approval Link Sent to Manager

Once Manager Approves, Director Receives Notification of Status and Approval Link

The Initiator Receives the Final Email with Comments

Video Explanation