Flow that copies requested Dropbox info to SharePoint

A SharePoint Flows tutorial by Peter Kalmström

Goals

• Allow restaurant owners to enter menu items in a Word template file.
• Allow restaurant owners to upload their menu document to Dropbox without signing in.
• Let a flow add the information from the menu document into a new SharePoint file in a document library.
• SharePoint and Dropbox will not be shared with anyone.

Create a Document library

1. Click on the gear icon in the menu bar and select 'Add an app'.
2. Click on the 'Document Library' template and give it the name 'Kick Off Menus'.
3. To add a new currency type column in the Document Library, click '+' and select 'More'.
4. In the page that opens, name the column 'Cost per guest' and select the column type Currency. Select '0' under the dropdown 'Number of decimal places:' as we do not want any decimal values in the cost.
5. Click 'OK' to create the column.
6. To reorder a column, click '+' and select 'Show/hide columns'. Then click on the up arrow to move the column upwards.
7. Click on 'Apply'.
8. Open the view selector and click on 'Save view'.

Edit a Word template

1. Click on the 'gear' icon in the top menu and select 'Library settings'.
2. Click on 'Advanced settings'.
3. Click on 'Edit template' under 'Template URL:' and then on the 'OK' button in the message box. Now you can either create your own template for the menu requests or use Peter's form, that you are welcome to download and copy to your own template.
4. To insert the column 'Cost per guest' in the downloaded template, open the 'Insert' tab in the document template and click on 'Quick Parts'. Under 'Document Property' select 'Cost per guest'.
5. By default, the file is read-only, so change the restrictions so that users can fill out the form and not modify the template. Open the 'Developer' tab and click on 'Restrict Editing'. Under 'Editing restrictions' mark the check box 'Allow only this type of editing in the document:' and select 'Filling in forms' from the dropdown.
6. Save the template.
7. Save the file to your computer, so that you can e-mail it to the restaurants.

Create a Dropbox folder

1. Login in to your Dropbox account.
2. Click on 'File requests', enter the name 'Menu suggestions'. This will create a folder in your Dropbox account where users can upload their menu documents without signing in to Dropbox.
3. Click on 'Next'.
4. Copy the link to the new folder for file requests and paste it in the email with the attachment. Now you can send the email to the restaurant owners.

Create a Flow

• “Copy files between Dropbox and SharePoint”, that creates files in SharePoint but keeps the files in Dropbox.
• “Move file, that is created in a Dropbox folder to a SharePoint folder” that deletes the Dropbox file when the new file has been created in SharePoint.

1. In the Power Automate site, search for Dropbox and select one of the templates.
2. Click on the picker to the right in the folder box and continue clicking on the arrow until you have reached the “Menu suggestions” folder.
3. In the action ‘Create file’, select the site and the Kick Off Menus library. Keep the default dynamic content.
4. (Keep the default dynamic content in the ‘Delete file’ action.)
5. Save and test the flow.

Test the process

1. Compose an e-mail with the Dropbox link and attach the Word template. Add instructions to save the file as a .docx file with another name and then upload that file to Dropbox. Send this e-mail to yourself.
2. Enter 'Cost per guest' and some menu details and click on the link in the e-mail to upload the document to Dropbox.
3. Go to the SharePoint document library and refresh the page to see the new document.

Add a rating column

1. To add a rating column to the library, click on the gear icon in the top menu and select 'Library settings'.
2. Click on 'Rating settings' in the General Settings group.
3. Select 'Yes' under 'Allow items in this list to be rated?' and select 'Star Ratings' under 'Which voting/rating experience would you like to enable for this list?'.
4. Click 'OK.