Unable to call a child flow – "old version of Flow"

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Posted on by Syed Obaidullah Ali

I'm trying to use a child flow from a parent flow using the Run a Child Flow action, but I'm consistently receiving the following error:

The workflow with id 'xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx', name 'SubmitFile ' cannot be used as a child workflow because it is on an old version of Flow. Please re-create it inside a solution.

The parent flow is a Recurrence flow and is using the new designer. The child flow is inside the same unmanaged Solution and is in the same environment.

I have also created the child flow from scratch using the new designer. At that point, it opened in the new designer. However, after I updated the Run-only users settings to use static connections, I noticed that the child flow started opening in the classic designer instead.

Has anyone experienced this issue and how can I resolve this error?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Building flows

General topics

Using flows

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Valantis 6,456 on at

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Hi. @Syed Obaidullah Ali,

updating Run-only users to use static connections is what's triggering the downgrade to the classic designer and marking the flow as an old version. Microsoft docs confirm this is a known incompatibility.

The fix is to delete the child flow and recreate it from scratch inside the solution with the new designer, but this time configure the static connections correctly from the start, in that exact order:

1. Create the child flow inside the solution using the new designer with a "Manually trigger a flow" trigger

2. Before saving the first time, go to the flow's properties page > Run only users > Edit, and set each connection to "Use this connection (connection name)" instead of "Provided by run-only user"

3. Save after that, without ever switching to the classic designer at any point

Microsoft docs confirm:

child flows only support embedded connections, meaning static connections you select in Run-only users are required, but the way you configure them matters. Setting them via the properties page before the flow's schema gets locked into classic format is key.

If the flow keeps reverting to classic designer after saving, it usually means something in the trigger or an action is incompatible with the new designer schema. Check if any action in the child flow is one of the known incompatible ones and replace it with the new designer equivalent.

Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/create-child-flows

Best regards,

Valantis

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Syed Obaidullah Ali 2 on at

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@Valantis How to set each connection to "Use this connection (connection name)" instead of "Provided by run-only user" without saving the flow first?

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