Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Hi,

I'm creating a flow where when somebody completes a change request in SharePoint it then sends an approval or deny request to a manager. A problem I'm running into is where the initial approval email that is sent doesn't complete the 'Start and wait for an approval' condition. It will update the status column like it should but then it sends another duplicate email and then the flow completes. I've looked at all the logic and can't seem to find anything wrong.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Categories:

Building flows

Hi @ZB-28051344-0

This is usually caused by the flow triggering itself.

If your trigger is “When an item is created or modified”, then any Update item action inside the same flow will modify the SharePoint item again. That second modification can retrigger the flow, which is why you see the approval email sent a second time before the flow completes.

A good way to prevent this is to add a guard condition so the flow only runs when the item is actually waiting for approval.
For example, add a trigger condition to the SharePoint trigger:

@equals(triggerBody()?['Status']?['Value'], 'Pending Approval')

If Status is a text column instead of a Choice column, use:

@equals(triggerBody()?['Status'], 'Pending Approval')

I would also check the flow run history and look at what triggered the duplicate run. If the second run is triggered right after your own Update item action, that confirms the flow is retriggering from its own SharePoint update.

If you have any questions or feedback, please let me know. Have a great day! 😊

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