How do I configure cloud flow to reference related ROW ID of a record when a new activity record is added to the timeline of a related record

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Posted on by LiamS

Hi All,

I'm looking to try and migrate and re-create an existing "process" in our dynamics environment over to power automate.

The process was initially setup to run in the background. It works as follows:

When any new activity record (e.g. in example below a 'Post' record, but in theory we want a cloud flow to run anytime a new Email, Post, Note, Phone Call activity record) is created and added to the timeline for a given contact record, we would then want the system to run the flow in order to update & populate a specific Time/Date column called 'Latest Addition to Timeline Date' . This column is found within the related Lifecycle record for the main contact record where the 'Post' was originally created and added to the timeline control.

In the old workflow/process, this is how we had this setup:

Main workflow setup screen:

Properties screen:

~*************************~

So, I'm trying to recreate this in Power automate as a scheduled cloud flow (as only need this to check and run 3 times a day, thus why we've selected it as a scheduled flow), however I'm struggling to figure out how I configure this in Power Automate equivalent to how it's currently setup via the 'old' process way.

Currently, I've a draft flow which has the following simple steps:

1. Recurrence:

> 2. 'When a row is added, modified or deleted' action:

>> 3. 'Update a row' action:

In the 'Update a Row' action, I've configured the flow to populate the current UTC date/time in the 'Latest Addition to Timeline Date' column which will suffice:

... however I'm not sure what expression I should be using so the flow knows to pull the related contact record ROW ID - this is a mandatory required value for the 'Update a Row' action in the flow setup:

... or to ask the question another way, how to I get the row ID of the contact record who's just had a POST record added to its related timeline?

The closest I've found to someone asking this in a somewhat tangential way is here but nobody responded so posting here hoping someone can shed some light on this for me.

Thanks all,
Liam

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Answers (1)

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LiamS 33 on at

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RE: How do I configure cloud flow to reference related ROW ID of a record when a new activity record is added to the timeline of a related record

Hi both,

Thanks again folks for your input, I tried Leah's suggestion re: adding in the additional middle 'get row by ID' step, and the referencing the regarding(Value) of that step in the 'update a row' step - and I'm now seeing the flow run successfully and I'm seeing the field in the 'LIfecycle' entity/table updating as expected.

Thanks again for everyone's comments.

Regards,
LIam
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Leah Ju Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: How do I configure cloud flow to reference related ROW ID of a record when a new activity record is added to the timeline of a related record

Hi LiamS,

It seems that we can't get regarding value directly from trigger step, So you need add one step 'Get a row by ID' between original two steps:

Then you need get regarding value from the new step to update records:

Also, you can add one condition to check regarding type before updating records as Car suggested

In the Regarding field of the post, you can populate records from multiple entities, so you can update it only if it is the type of entity you want.
c_edouarde 15 on at

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RE: How do I configure cloud flow to reference related ROW ID of a record when a new activity record is added to the timeline of a related record

Hi Liam,

Have your tried using the Regarding Object ID?

Use a condition to filter just for the Contact Table name then if true, get the record Id of the contact which you can then pass to the rest of your outline.
LiamS 33 on at

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RE: How do I configure cloud flow to reference related ROW ID of a record when a new activity record is added to the timeline of a related record

Hi all,

Thanks for your responses, much appreciated!

I setup my flow as suggested:

...

... however when I run a few tests it keeps failing with an error throw at the 'Update a row' step (error: The resolved string values for the following parameters are invalid, they may not be null or empty: 'recordId').

It appears that the 'Regarding(Value)' reference is pulling a null value from the 1st 'When a row is added, modified or deleted' step, as seen in the 'raw inputs' that is getting passed to the 'Update a row' step, the 'CreatedOn' value of the newly created 'Post' record is passed through successfully:

I'm not sure why the system is struggling to pull the (parent?) value via that 'Regarding (Value)' param.

I also tried the alternative setup that Pradeep mentioned in his response (with initializing a variable to capture the 'Regarding(value)' param but same error occurs.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Liam
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Leah Ju Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: How do I configure cloud flow to reference related ROW ID of a record when a new activity record is added to the timeline of a related record

Hi LiamS,

Please refer to the following process, which is equivalent to the setup of your "old" process.

1.Trigger:

--The flow will be running when any post was created:

2.Update a row:

(I don't have 'Lifecycle' entity, so ignore the entity and columns I used for testing.)

--Add dynamic value from last step, regarding(value) store guid.

For the 'Latest Addition to Timeline Date' column, you can still get created date of post to populate it:
Suggested answer

Pradeep Rai 5,487 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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RE: How do I configure cloud flow to reference related ROW ID of a record when a new activity record is added to the timeline of a related record

Hi,

You have configured the Power Automate incorrectly.

You should create a Automate Flow, which will trigger when any post added. The Flow should start like below:

And Above highlighted fields will help you to get post regarding such as contact, account etc,+