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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Instant flows fail whe...
Power Automate
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Instant flows fail when you don't fill out all fields including Optional fields. Why?

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Posted on by 164

I created an instant flow on a SharePoint list.  I made some fields not mandatory.  The flow failed when a user did not fill out ALL fields.  What is going wrong?  I intentionally did not fill out the column called "Number" that's why the data in that field doesn't exist.  Its not a mandatory field. 

SharonS_2-1719263398353.png

When all fields are filled out, then the flow runs successfully.

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  • WillPage Profile Picture
    2,307 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

    Put a question mark in your expression to make it nullable e.g triggerBody()?['number']

    When a property is null it's often omitted from the JSON object so doing this will make the value null whether it exists with a null value or it's simply not there.

  • SharonS Profile Picture
    164 on at

    Here is the expression that I am using for a text field.  

     

    if(empty(triggerBody()['text'],'',triggerBody()['text']))
     
    Its an if then statement.   
     
    Do I put the question mark here (see below)?
    if(empty(triggerBody()?['text'],'',triggerBody()['text']))
  • WillPage Profile Picture
    2,307 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

    Yes, but you can refine the expression using the coalese() function:

    coalesce(triggerBody()?['text'],'')

    This will convert the null value of triggerBody()?['text'] to an empty string otherwise leave triggerBody()?['text'] as is if it's not null

  • SharonS Profile Picture
    164 on at

    @WillPage  Thank you.  I will try that.

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