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Duplicate "Apply To Each" inserted?

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Posted on by Martin_W

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Hi,

The short description of my intended flow is;

1. Get rows from Dataverse table which meet specified criteria (using List Rows)

2. For each row returned;

2a. Lookup the user's email address (using Search for Users V2)

2b. Send an email (using Outlook Send an Email V2) with the To parameter set to the output of step 2a

When I create the flow and get to step 2a, a "For Each" or "Apply to Each" is inserted before the "Search for Users" step. I understand why that is.

I can then do step 2b, and what I get looks like this;

Again, this makes sense to me. Logically, the first step gets a list of rows, and then for each row, it looks up the user to get the email address, then sends an email.

However, as soon as I set the "Send an Email" "To " parameter to use the "Search for Users" Email parameter, it inserts another "Apply to Each" or "For Each" like this;

Firstly - why on earth does it do this as the second "For Each" seems redundant at best - at worst couldn't it send out multiple emails?

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Building flows

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creativeopinion

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@Martin_W The Search for Users (V2) action returns an array of users—even if it's a single user. The output is still an array. You need to use an expression to access the dynamic content from the Search for Users (V2) output to avoid looping through the array.

Take a look a this YT Tutorial I recently uploaded: 3 Mistakes YOU 🫵 are Making with the Apply to Each Action in your Microsoft Power Automate Flow

In this video tutorial I’ll go over how to avoid these common mistakes when using the Apply to Each action in a Power Automate flow:

1️⃣ Looping through a Single Item

2️⃣ Creating Unnecessary Nested Loops

3️⃣ Looping through an Unfiltered Array

At the end of the video I share a few helpful insights when it comes to using the Apply to Each action in your flow.

I'll also cover:

✅ How to avoid the Apply to Each action with a single item array

✅ How to use the item() function to access dynamic content in an array

✅ How to prevent unnecessary nested Apply to Each action loops

✅ How to use the Select action

✅ How to convert an array to a string with the Select action

✅How to use the Filter Query field

✅ How to count the number of items in an array

✅ How to use a condition control

✅ How to use the concurrency control

✅ How to set a top count

✅ How to use Compose actions for troubleshooting

Hope this helps!

If I helped you solve your problem—please mark my post as a solution ✅.
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Martin_W 373 on at

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Hi @creativeopinion

Thanks for the reply. I've checked out the YouTube video and that solution no longer seems to work? The error message I'm getting is

"Flow save failed with code 'InvalidTemplate' and message 'The template validation failed: 'The workflow action 'Compose' at line '1 and column '3783' references the action 'Search_for_users_(V2)' of type 'OpenApiConnection': only the actions of type 'foreach' are allowed to be referenced by 'repeatItems' or 'items' functions.'.'."

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creativeopinion 10,508 Moderator on at

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@Martin_W Can you please share a screenshot of your flow in edit mode (Classic Editor view please) and a screenshot of the error and which action you are receiving the error in?

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Martin_W 373 on at

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Hi,

I've managed to sort this now. It turns out that the new Power Automate designer is not very good!

Thanks for your help!

Martin

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