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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Thinking my way throug...
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Thinking my way through infinite loop

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Posted on by 70

High level - I have a single SharePoint list I am using for tracking purposes. Multiple columns for each department and a status associated to each department. I want to update status automatically with flows when a department adds an assessment in their associated column. So initially - my flow trigger is "when an item is updated" because it's waiting for a department to add their assessment. If they do, then I call a "update item" looking at the field that was updated, so I can update the column next to it (the status). But that "update" would trigger the initial "when an item is updated" and cause a loop again and again. Am I using the right triggers/actions? or is there any control I can add to ensure this doesn't happen?

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  • Ed Gonzales Profile Picture
    4,531 Most Valuable Professional on at

    @ay2 

    Hi there!  Great job thinking this through before causing it to happen! 🙂

     

    Check out this article from @melihubb on avoiding the infinite loop.  It's from last year, but the concepts should still be relevant:

     

    THE INFINITE LOOP: WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO AVOID IT

     

    Good luck, and keep us posted.

    -Ed

     

    If you liked this reply, please give it a thumbs up! If this reply has answered your question or resolved your challenge, please consider marking it as a Solution. This helps other users find it more easily via search.

     

  • ay2 Profile Picture
    70 on at

    @edgonzales 

     

    Thanks, I can see this working out if you check exactly which column is updated, and if not just have it terminate.

     

    In terms of checking for each department column then to update the corresponding department status, I wonder whats the best way to approach this? Best I can think of is having multiple parallel branching "if's" checking each department column. There doesn't seem to be a way to do an "if", "else if", "else". Is there a more efficient way to systematically check through the updates?

  • Ed Gonzales Profile Picture
    4,531 Most Valuable Professional on at

    @ay2 

    I wonder if you could rather get the department of the user making the update, and then use a Switch action to update the respective column?

     

    Just a thought.  If you haven't already investigated or used Switch, it's basically a condition which allows non-binary results.  This article chats about it some, Calendar Sync with Switch in Power Automate / Flow.

     

    Good luck, and keep us posted.

    -Ed

     

     

    If you liked this reply, please give it a thumbs up! If this reply has answered your question or resolved your challenge, please consider marking it as a Solution. This helps other users find it more easily via search.

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