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Checking if user already exists

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Posted on by RonVK

Hi there,

I've been building a flow in Power Automate and I want to check if a user already exists based on a certain value submitted through a Microsoft Forms form.

I'm trying to do this using the Search for users (V2) function and a for each statement where it should check for users in MS365 compared to a concat it does in an earlier step. Whenever the user exists an email will be sent to the submitter of the form stating that the user already exists and they should contact the IT department.

Say that the first name is John and last name is Smith, it's concat to j.smith as the mail nickname. Nested in the for each I want to compare it to the user principal name (I've tested this with Nickname in the Search for users (V2) step as well) but for some reason it finds the name but doesn't check if it already exists.

Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.

If anyone can help me, that would be great!

Thank you in advance!

Kind regards,

Ron

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Building flows

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,351 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @RonVK

Let's try this.

Quick validation as its not 100%. So someone is submitting a request on behalf of another person? And they don't provide the Email address of the person because they are trying to get them created?

Also what does this mean exactly

but for some reason it finds the name but doesn't check if it already exists.

Finds the name where? In your M365 Search?

If it finds it isn't that the check already to verify it exists? So not following.

We need to see what your flow sees at run-time, versus what you expect, so follow these steps.

1. Go to the Details Page for that Flow

2. Click one of the Rows in the 28-day run history to open it up. Make sure its a test run that failed doing what you thought it should do

3. Once opened, click OFF the New view, in the top right corner

4. Now go down to the For Each (Apply to Each)

5. You should either have just 1 run, or many

6. Look at the output properties of your LookUp, and manually just look at the data and compare that to the Mail Nick value you got.

If there is no match, then you know why it didn't work and you can more easily see whats up.

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RonVK 16 on at

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Hi Mike,

Thank you for your response.

Yes, the idea is that HR submits a form in which they submit information on a new co-worker. They don't provide the email address as the email address is concat from the first character of the first name, seperated with a dot (.) and completed with the last name (e.g. John Smith = j.smith@domain.com)

The idea within the flow is that it should check if there's already a user within the Azure tenant with the Mail nickname j.smith and if so it should deviate from the standard flow and reply to the sender that the user is already existent within the tenant.

The odd thing is, it works somehow but it still continues the flow:

So partially it works now, it just needs to stop whenever the user already exists.
It will not let me use a terminate nested in a for each so that's a new thing

P.s. I might've set it up incorrectly before as the flow seem to work, though it still continues.

Kind regards,

Ron

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,351 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @RonVK

So sorry confused. So it just started working or it always work?

Anyway, if you dont want it to continue if the thing is false, then add a Terminate Flow action.
If I have helped you, I would really appreciate if you please Mark my answer as Resolved/Answered, and give it a thumbs up, so it can help others

Cheers

Thank You
Michael Gernaey MCT | MCSE | MCP | Self-Contractor| Ex-Microsoft
https://gernaeysoftware.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgernaey

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RonVK 16 on at

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Hi Mike,

It appears to be working now.
Unfortunately it wont let me use a terminate flow within a for each statement:

Flow save failed with code 'InvalidWorkflowRunAction' and message 'The workflow run action 'Terminate' has type 'Terminate' that could not be nested under an action of type 'foreach'.'.

Do you have any idea how to bypass this?

Kind regards,

Ron

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,351 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Then move your below actions into the yes side. instead of outside where it will be impacted by both.

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RonVK 16 on at

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Hi Mike,

Thank you for your response. Didn't quite work out as you mentioned, since it would be still within the for each loop (as far as I understood what you meant), but I've found another way around it:

I've initalized a bool variable where the value is false by definition. Then whenever the for each loop is triggered it sets the value (set variable) to true whenever the statement is true (aka if user is not unique/new then the statement is set to true). After the for each loop, I've set up a condition where the value of that set variable is checked for a false statement. If the value is false it continues the flow (setup as "is not equal to true" for easy reading), if it's true it terminates the flow.

Below the setup itself:

terminateFlow set to false by default

same for each loop as before but with the terminateFlow set variable step to true if it's triggered

condition afterwards:

It correctly sends me (as submitter of the form) an email stating that the user already exists (email is a concept):

Kind regards,

Ron

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