Set default values for SharePoint list items

There are so many features in SharePoint (on-prem & online) that some may be overlooked. Lately, I was working on a PowerApps with Power Automate in the background, and I needed to set default values for some items’ fields, and surprisingly, my first thought was to set those values within the flow.

But I have noticed a couple of things by doing it this way. First, that Power Automate was slow to set the value, and second, it was also adding a new version (i.e.: 2.0) to the item! Which I didn’t want as I was using specific trigger conditions to the flow based on the item version.

Anyway, bottom line is, setting the desired value was faster in SharePoint directly!
 

Scenario

In this particular scenario, we’re following an approval process, where SharePoint is used as the backend. So the goal is that, when we move from one approval to the other, we set the next approver status as “Pending”.

Our fields will be single line of text, and the column name will be Approver Status.
 

Create the column

When we create the column, we have the option to set the dault value straight away. This is very handy as we don’t need to create the column and then, return to make the change.

Create the item with the default value

When we click on New, and we create a new item, the default value is already showing up.

And saving the item for creation, will automatically add this value. This will happen for every new item. Very handy (once again) if you know that this default value will be your first point of entry, like in an Approval process for example.

Thanks for reading!