Updating SharePoint hyperlink column descriptions using Power Automate

In this post we look at how you can update a description in a hyperlink column in SharePoint using Power Automate.

The problem

I have a list (list A) with hyperlinks for site requests. Another list (list B) records information about the created sites. When a column is updated in list A, it triggers a flow to create a new item in list B with the relevant URL.

Using the standard “create item” action in Power Automate creates the list item with the URL, but it’s just the big, long link and isn’t formatted to say what the site is.

I want to be able to provide a friendly name for the site as well as a clickable link.

The solution

Full credit goes to Nate Chamberlain and his post on the subject, which gave me my answer, which is to use the send an http request action!

Add a Send an HTTP request to SharePoint action
Select the site in question
Set Method to POST
Copy/ paste the following in Uri, but change the list name to your list name between the ”, and replace [ID] with the ID field from dynamic content

_api/web/lists/GetByTitle('List Name')/items([ID])

For Headers, press the toggle to switch to text mode

Copy/ paste the json code below

{
  "Content-Type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
  "X-HTTP-Method": "MERGE",
  "IF-MATCH": "*"
}

For Body, update the following parts of the json code below to match your list/ column setup:
- Replace ProjectList with your list name
- Replace ProjectSiteURL with the name of your hyperlink column
- Replace ProjectNumber with the description or dynamic content you want the hyperlink to display
- Replace SiteURL with your URL or dynamic content

{'__metadata': {'type':'SP.Data.ProjectListListItem'},'ProjectSiteURL':
 {'Description': 'ProjectNumber',
 'Url': 'SiteURL'}
 }

That’s it, once this is setup you should have nicely formatted URL’s in your site lists!

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