Filter by calculated fields in SharePoint using Power Automate

When you read items from a SharePoint list and you want to filter by calculated fields in that list filter queries will fail. So how can you filter your items?

A SharePoint list with a calculated field

In SharePoint I’ve created a list with a calculated column. These calculations can become quite complicated and sometimes you might just want to create a flow that does the calculations for you.

There are however plenty of reason to create calculated columns. In my example I’m using the created column to calculate tomorrow.

Then as i create items in my list I see that Tomorrow has been set to tomorrow’s date.

Get Items from SharePoint

When you use the experimental filter query option you will see that the calculated columns aren’t listed in the drop down and also when you use the GA version of the same things will not be much better

When you configure the query with add a custom item in the above action, then you will see the following error when you run the flow:

The field ‘Tomorrow’ of type ‘Calculated’ cannot be used in the query filter expression.

Filter by calculated fields

So that means that we can’t filter the items during the get items action and we will need an additional filter action added to our flow.

Condition Left: formatDateTime(item()?[‘Tomorrow’], ‘d’)

Condition right: formatDateTime(AddDays(utcNow(), 1), ‘d’)

When we run the flow with this additional fitler action, the flow is successful and we managed to filter by calculated fields in SharePoint.

Pieter Veenstra

Is your business still running on paper trails, sprawling Excel files, or ageing Access databases? There's a better way — and I can show you exactly what it looks like. I'm the Technical Director of Vantage 365, a Microsoft solutions consultancy working with clients across the UK, the Netherlands, and worldwide. For over 30 years I've been turning messy, manual business processes into clean, automated systems that save time, reduce errors, and give teams the visibility they need to make better decisions. SharePains is not just any blog run by a Microsoft MVP. Have you ever used Try-Catch in Power Automate? The original post about Try-Catch in Power Automate can still be found on this site, https://sharepains.com/2018/02/07/try-catch-finally-in-power-automate-flow/ Or have you ever used the Pieter’s method to avoid variables and speed up your flows? https://sharepains.com/2020/03/11/pieters-method-for-advanced-in-flows/ You can contact me using contact@sharepains.com