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MS Forms Trigger and 90 day timeout disables Flow

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Posted on by SubB

I have a Power Automate flow that is triggered by the submission of an MS Form.

However, this may not be used at times, and if not used for 90 days, the Power Automate Flow is automatically disabled if not triggered for 90 days. I need this flow to be live and enabled at all times - how can I achieve this?

1. Is there a way to have multiple triggers - i.e. trigger the flow every 89 days AND when a Form is submitted?

2. Is there a way to automate the submission of a dummy MS Form submission to artificially model a dummy submission?

3. Any smarter way to achieve this?

All help here is much appreciated. Thanks

Sub

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Rhiassuring 8,692 Moderator on at

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You can create a workflow that will turn the flow back on every X days.

Check out this blog: https://www.about365.nl/2021/02/02/how-to-bypass-the-expiration-limit-in-power-automate/

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SubB 8 on at

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Unfortunately that does not work as it requires a premium licence. Any other thoughts?

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SubB 8 on at

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Sorry not a premium licence - the use of this connector is blocked by our firms DLP policy. Either way, point is I can't use this action. Any alternative solution?

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Rhiassuring 8,692 Moderator on at

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Well, you CAN have two triggers for a flow - but you'd need to create your main flow in a Solution, and then create the two other flows as the triggers, calling the "child". But I think you're going to run into the same issue anyway, since the "Trigger when a form is submitted" will still time out after 90 days.

I was trying to think of a way you could automatically submit a pre-filled MS Form and then filter it out by a keyword, but you'd need Power Automate Desktop and a VM to do that, so, more trouble than it's worth and ... premium.

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SubB 8 on at

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Thanks for the suggestion but agree this does give you a way to setup multiple triggers, but as each of these is a flow by itself, the 90 day issue is still an issue.
Still looking for a simple non-premium solution - Anyone?

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Rhiassuring 8,692 Moderator on at

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My simplest suggestion is ... add a reminder in your calendar repeating every 87-ish days (to avoid weekends) to go check it / turn it back on if needed. But that's like, caveman-methodology, haha. With the limitations, that's the best I can come up with.

Let's see if these fine fellows have any better ideas... they usually do.. @grantjenkins @Pstork1 @Expiscornovus

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Pstork1 69,583 Most Valuable Professional on at

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The only way I can think of is a variation on the flow in the article. But instead of using an email to trigger it I would set it up with a recurrence trigger that runs once every month. It would then read a list of flows to enable from some data source, it could even be Excel, and enable the flows using the Flow administration connector. But if that is blocked by DLP in your tenant that won't work.

Another way would be to write some PowerShell using the Power Automate commands that would do something similar. Use the built in windows scheduler to schedule the PowerShell script to run once a month and enable a set of flows that you specify.

Finally, you could try scheduling a Desktop flow to go in once a month and enable the flow. You can now schedule desktop flows with the windows scheduler without making them unattended.

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Expiscornovus 33,970 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Rhiassuring,

In addition to the approaches @Pstork1 already suggested and which are very useful I have one other suggestion.

You could also use CLI for Microsoft 365 (which gives you a bit more options from an operating system/platform point of view compared to PowerShell).

That module also has a flow enable command as well:

https://pnp.github.io/cli-microsoft365/cmd/flow/flow-enable

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Rhiassuring 8,692 Moderator on at

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Thank you @Pstork1 & @Expiscornovus for your responses!

Unfortunately, unless I'm mistaken, any PowerShell running will require a premium license so that won't work for @SubB

...and for the CLI solution, I have no idea XD

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Pstork1 69,583 Most Valuable Professional on at

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The CLI will use the same connector as the cloud flow I think. So if its blocked by DLP it will be blocked for the CLI also. But the PowerShell won't require a Premium license unless you are accessing Premium Actions. You can read about the requirements here: PowerShell support for Power Apps and Power Automate - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

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