Forum Discussion
Highlight or count duplicates in a single Sharepoint List column
- Jul 10, 2022
RADical6142 Here you go...
Create a variable and connect to your list:
Now, for each item above - check the list to see if that serial number exists anywhere else in that list. If it does, increment a variable. When it's done, update the IsDuplicate field to yes or no.
In the apply to each
- set the count back to 0
- Get the list items for searching
Now add another Apply to each and a condition. The condition: if the Serial Number (in the first Get Items) equals the Serial Number (in the second Get Items), increment the variable. It will always find a match once.
After that apply to each, add another condition that checks to see if the count is greater than 1, set IsDuplicate to Yes, if not, set IsDuplicate to No.
That's it, your list should be updated. Here's a big picture view, beginning to end.
Some thoughts...
- I set this to run as recurrence since it will probably take a long time to run depending on how many items are in your list. You might want to filter that first Get Items to only check items that have been updated since the last time it ran.
- If this is a one-time cleanup, maybe set the Serial Number field in SharePoint to Enforce Unique Values
Here is the json for the Title column.
{"elmType": "div","debugMode": true,"txtContent": "@currentField","style": {"background-color": "=if([$IsDuplicate] == 'Yes', '#FFFFDD', '')"}}
I wanted to follow-up to my earlier response as I have identified a slightly more streamlined solution that circumvents the issue with the count. Basically, it compares both 'Get Items' like PamDeGraffenreid's solution but then trades the count for a condition that compares column values before comparing the ID number of the list item(s).
Namely, If the IDs don't match, it will update a field in the list, whose value I then leverage in the standard MS List conditional formatting (e.g. If column X = Yes then column Y will be formatted 'yellow') to highlight duplicate items.
I appreciate PamDeGraffenreid's approach as it was very insightful. Thanks!
Hi Mike_Marmon
I'm trying to implement what Pam has laid out, but for Addresses ina sharepoint list.
The flow runs fine, but never increases the variable more than 1, which marks all my items as 'IsDuplicate = No' even if there are duplicate addresses.
I even tried to create a custom view on the list, so the Get Items action returns only the address column.
any idea on how to properly implement this?
or any further info on your more streamlined approach?
cheers