Create searchable SharePoint photo library

[jmak]

I have a folder full of photos (the organisation's complete archive) and a spreadsheet with every photo listed (filename without file type extension is in one column) and a brief description of the content and context of the image in each row.

 

I'd like to import the images and spreadsheet into a SharePoint online library so that it's searchable by terms in the description.

 

I've made a start with power automate, but wondered if anyone had any hints. I'd rather stick with Power Automate if possible as we're using SharePoint to store the photos and then way once it's set up, the archivist can manage it without my involvement.

[ThomL]

Are you using Power Automate to access the excel file and search the relevant column and then returning the filename of the relevant image file? Or are you looking at adding the excel file column content as metadata to the image files before uploading them to SharePoint?

 

I would think Power Automate could pull this off, if not you could definitely make something with Power Apps that could do this. I'm guessing you not only want to search the current images via excel but also add images and a description?

 

How far are you with Power Automate? is there any sticking point in particular you're looking for help with?

Edited June 2, 2023 by ThomL

[jmak]

Thanks for responding to my fairly ill-defined question!

 

I'm new to power automate. Previously I would have done this kind of thing on a file server and used powershell to create a searchable database.

 

The person who has asked me for assistance would have done it manually. All of our data (for this kind of purpose) is now in SharePoint so I'd like to take the opportunity to learn something new and also set up something so that users can add items themselves in the future.

 

My end goal is to create a SharePoint intranet page where anyone in the organisation can type key words into a search box, one or more thumbnails will appear and the user could click on the one they think is most relevant and then view the original image.

 

I've started by importing a few images into a SharePoint library and creating a flow. At the minute, if an image is added, it creates a thumbnail*, but I haven't got anything to link the image file to the information in Excel. To make it more future proof, I'm not sure whether I should be keeping the excel file and somehow linking it or converting it into a SharePoint list to make it easier to manipulate in a flow.

 

*For the user, even this is a big time saver - previously they were using Photoshop to create the thumbnails manually for each image. Fortunately they've only done a few hundred out of the thousands of images.

 

Thanks again.

[ThomL]

It might be worth pivoting to PowerApps, store the data like image filename, descriptive items, thumbnail and original in the SharePoint list then use the PowerApp to manage user interactions with the data like adding images and decryptions, searching the existing list or modifying existing records.

 

I recently made a staff leave request system using PowerApps as the front end - users access the PowerApp to submit requested/track request progress, managers approve/deny leave in the power app and HR have an over view of all leave requests and are the final approve/deny step. The data is written back to a SharePoint list, I use PowerAutomate to trigger flows when the SharePoint list has new items created or items in the list are updated to alert users via email: managers alerted they have a request to approve, persons submitting the leave request of any changes to the request (if approved or denied, stage of the approval process etc.) and HR alerted for final approval. Another daily flow triggers just before the HR staff member is on site during the week that sends a report from the list to display leave for the data and timetable periods that need covering. SharePoint + PowerApps+ PowerAutomate is a pretty strong combo.

 

It took some work to get this built, tested and dealing with edge cases, but everyone seems happy with the outcome. Depending on how much you want to get your hands dirty and bespoke you want the solution, PowerApps has some quirks but you could integrate the flow you've already made into a PowerApps app so you've got the thumbnail creation already in place.

 

That being said I'm sure you could do this without PowerApps, but if you learning new stuff it plays nicely with what you're already picking up.

 

Not sure I've been too helpful if I'm honest. I did start looking at a native SharePoint solution after my first reply using asset Libraries but getting the tags metadata searchable was proving to be a pain - if it had been easy a SharePoint asset library may have been the easiest solution.

[jmak]

Definitely helpful. The reason I stopped was that I want convinced I had the right approach. I didn't want to force something into Power Automate if it wasn't the right solution.

[ThomL]

Power Automate could be the right solution, just depends on the work needed to pull off what you want with SharePoint to allow the searching and modification etc.

 

From the requirements you've mentioned and my recent experience with PowerApps I think it's achievable with PowerApps, but might take longer to get up and running, and I could easily be wrong. I'd recommend starting small like anything. Get a PowerApp connected to a SharePoint list and able to add images to the list from the app, then move on to trigger trigger the thumbnail generation flow when a new item is added to the SharePoint list. then add an area to enter descriptive text in the app and a column in the SharePoint list to store the text, move on to editing existing items, search etc. etc.

 

Feel free to drop me a DM if I can help, or bump the thread - I'm intrigued!

[mavhc]

Unrelated to the question, but to generate labels for your photos perhaps use https://docs.photoprism.app/developer-guide/metadata/classification/