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Create an approval action returned outputs without Approvers array

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Posted on by wkoo

Hi,

I have created a flow using the Create an approval Action and executed it successfully (there is a green tick at the top right corner in the execution results). However, when I looked at the Outputs, I realised that the expected Approvers array is missing in the output. As you can see, the "Assigned to" field in the action is properly filled. This issue is intermittent like 1 out of 10 actions triggered will have this issue. There is no error reported by the Create an approval Action, but this will result in an error in later part of the flow in another Action using the Approver arrays when it is empty. Also good to note that when such an error occurs, resubmitting the same flow, without making any changes, will result in the flow properly executed (i.e. the outputs from the Create an approval Action now contains the Approvers array) without any error.

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v-yueyun-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi , @wkoo

I test it in my side , i can not reproduce your issue in my side.

As workaround, you can use this code to get the emails from the action's input:
split( actions('Create_an_approval')?['inputs']?['parameters']?['ApprovalCreationInput/assignedTo'] , ';')

And the result is as follows:

You can use the filter array action to filter the "" out.

And for your question,I suggest you create a support ticket for professional assistance following the below procedure. It may an internal service issue in my thought.

Get Help + Support - Power Platform | Microsoft Docs

Best Regards,

Yueyun Zhang

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wkoo on at

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Thanks for your reply, Yueyun. This seems to be a random issue. I suspect it is due to some settings in the environment. Like I mentioned in my original post, when the error occurred and I resubmitted the flow again with everything remains unchanged, the flow will be able to excuted properly and with the Approvers array filled. Currently, I have added a check after the Create an approval Action to check if the Approvers array is empty, the flow will send an email to inform me about the empty array issue and terminate the flow immediately. All I need to do is to re-trigger the same flow again and it will work in the next execution. This is my temporary solution, but I need a long-term fix to this problem as I can't be doing the re-triggering everytime.

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wkoo on at

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As an update on how I solved this on in my way. I added a 'Do until' Action around the 'Create an approval' Action. I also added a 'Condition' Action to check if the Approvers array is null. If it is not null, a variable is set to TRUE to allow the flow to break out of the 'Do until' Action and continue with the rest of the flow. This ensures the flow to work fine although it is not a pefect solution (which is to fix the environment issue). I have observed that, in some occasions, it took 2-9 loops before the 'Create an approval' Action managed to return an Approvers array with value. I then added a 10 seconds delay before executing the next loop, and I now see only 2-3 loops for the 'Create an approval' Action to return a proper Approvers array. Nevertheless, this resolves my problem temporary.

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