Documentation › Use Get Items by Query action (REST)

Use Get Items by Query action (REST)

This article will show you how to use Get Items by Query workflow action. This action is much easier to use than its ancestor “Get Items by CAML query”. It allows you to use simplified REST queries to get items. This approach works for SharePoint 2013 / 2016 / 2019 / SE as well as for SharePoint Online in Microsoft 365.

SharePoint Workflow Designer Get Items by Query

The first thing that you may be noticed, there is no more ugly CAML query. No more pain with debugging.

We wanted to make it simple as it possible. Just write list name what you want to select, specify fields and query. And it is all.Please have a look at documentation below we support abig amount of functions, which open a new opportunity for using the data in a workflow.

Logical operators

Eq

Equal

Address/City eq ‘Moscow’

Ne

Not equal

Address/City ne ‘London’

Gt

Greater than

Price gt 10

Ge

Greater than or equal

Price ge 20

Lt

Less than

Price lt 20

Le

Less than or equal

Price le 100

And

Logical and

Price le 200 and Price gt 10

Or

Logical or

Price le 3.5 or Price gt 200

Not

Logical negotiation

not endswith(Description, ‘ing’)

Arithmetic operators

Eq

Equal

Address/City eq ‘Moscow’

Add

Addition

Price add 5 gt 10

Sub

Substraction

Price sub 5 gt 10

Mul

Multiplication

Price mul 2 gt 2000

Div

Division

Price div 2 gt 4

Mod

Modulo

Price mod 2 eq 0

Group operators

()

Precedence grouping

(Price sub 5) gt 10

String functions

bool substringof(string p0, string p1)

substringof(‘Plumsail’, CompanyName)

bool endswith(string p0, string p1)

endswith(CompanyName, ‘LLC’)

bool startswith(string p0, string p1)

startswith(CompanyName, ‘Plum’)

int length(string p0)

length(Address) eq 20

int indexof(string p0, string p1)

indexof(CompanyName, ‘P’) eq 1

string replace(string p0, string find, string replace)

replace(CompanyName, ‘ ‘, ‘’) eq ‘Plumsail LLC’

string substring(string p0, int pos)

substring(CompanyName, 4) eq ‘sail LLC’

string subsctring(string p0, int pos, int length)

substring(CompanyName, 4, 4) eq ‘sail’

string tolower(string p0)

tolower(CompanyName) eq ‘plumsail llc’

string toupper(string p0)

toupper(CompanyName) eq ‘PLUMSAIL LLC’

string trim(string p0)

trim(CompanyName) eq ‘Plumsail LLC’

string concat(string p0, string p1)

concat(concat(City, ‘, ’), Country) eq ‘Berlin, Germany’

Date function\

int day(DateTime p0)

day(BirthDate) eq 8

int month(DateTime p0)

month(BirthDate) eq 12

int year(DateTime p0)

year(BirthDate) eq 1988

int hour(DateTime p0)

hour(BirthDate) eq 0

int minute(DateTime p0)

minute(BirthDate) eq 30

int second(DateTime p0)

second(BirthDate) eq 47

Math function

double round(double p0)

double(Freight) eq 32

double floor(double p0)

floor(Freight) eq 32

double ceiling(double p0)

ceiling(Freight) eq 33

Below you can find some examples of the queries:

  • StartTime ge datetime’2016-06-10′ and EndTime lt datetime’2016-06-12′

  • ((ContentType eq ‘Operating Policy’) or (ContentType eq ‘Procedure’)) and (Subject eq ‘Safety’)

  • substringof(‘F’,Title)

Additionally, you can customize the query via advanced properties (to open it, right click on the action and select properties)

Select Items by Query Additional property

The workflow action uses SharePoint REST API, to better understand how it works I would recommend the following articles:

SharePoint: Adventures with the REST API Part 1

Use OData query operations in SharePoint REST requests