Trigger a Microsoft flow only when a SharePoint list item is modified – An alternative approach

Introduction

One of my friend asked me whether there is a Microsoft flow action to trigger the flow only when a SharePoint Online list item is modified. Unfortunately there is no out of the box trigger available.

Solution

We can overcome this by adding a condition at the beginning of the flow - we have to check whether the created date time and modified date time are not equal. So the flow will execute only if the created time and modified time is not equal.

Please check the below screenshot for the reference.

Invoke a code activity (Native Activity) and retrieve the results using code – Workflow Foundation 4.5

Introduction

We can create code activity as a part of workflow solutions using workflow foundation 4.5. In this post I will show how we can create a native code activity and access the results in asp.net controller. Native code activity

 

   //The string mentioned in NativeActivity is the resut type.  

     public sealed class MySampleNativeCode : NativeActivity     {

         // Define an activity input argument of type string

         public InArgument Name { get; set; }



         protected override void Execute(NativeActivityContext context)

         {

             var name = context.GetValue(Name);

             //Here we set the string value to the Result property in NativeCode

             context.SetValue(base.Result, "Hello from Native Code Activity " + name);



         }

     }

Invoke the code activity The code activity is invoked in asp.net web api controller.

 
 // GET: api/CustomerRegistration

         public string Get()

         {

             //Create a instance of the native code

             Activity wf = new MySampleNativeCode();



             //Define the input argumentes

             Dictionary arguments = new Dictionary();

             arguments.Add("Name", "Suhail");



             //Invoke the workflow

             IDictionary outputs = WorkflowInvoker.Invoke(wf, arguments);



             //Get the output value and assign to return string

             var returnString = outputs["Result"].ToString();



             return returnString;

         }

Conclusion

You can see the value in “returnString” which is returned from Native Code Activity.

Cannot add .Net Standard 2.0 Class as .Net Type in Workflow Foundation Activity Designer projects in Visual Studio 2017

Introduction

I was working on Workflow Foundation 4.5 using Activity Designer Library template in Visual Studio 2017.

Problem Background

When I try to add a class library as input Type through Type Browser in Activity designer it shows an error as “The selected type could not be created” as shown in the image below.

I compared another machine with the latest update of Visual Studio which was working fine. The problem seems to be I didn’t have .Net framework 4.6.2 SDK and .Net framework 4.7 SDK installed.

Solution

I modified the Visual Studio as below using Visual Studio Installer.

Conclusion

You will can refer .Net Standard 2.0 projects and dlls in workflow foundation project templates and use without any issue.