Flow taking over 13 hours to run. Multiple Composes and create item in list

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Posted on by wonka1234

909 Super User 2024 Season 1

Hi,

How can I better optimize my flow?13 hours is way to long...

First part -

1. Reoccurrence.

2. Initialize variable of location of an excel on my onedrive

3. Get table from this excel.

4. Compose columns from this table in my excel file.

Compose Statement -

items('Apply_to_each')?[concat('Start of Period ', '/', ' Date')]

2nd compose -

if(

empty(outputs('Compose')),

null,

addDays('1899-12-30', int(outputs('Compose')), 'yyyy-MM-dd')

)

This is repeated several times for 6 or 7 date columns. Ie compose 3 and 4 will be for another date column, and so on.

5. Create items in list -

my excel table has about 50 columns and 2000 rows.

any help on making this faster would be appreciated.

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wonka1234 909 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Re: Flow taking over 13 hours to run. Multiple Composes and create item in list

@creativeopinion here is my full flow - there must be a way to optimize this. +13 is way to long.

I have this filter array but it literally filters out 1 record lol
then we have the composes... and create item
creativeopinion 10,439 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Flow taking over 13 hours to run. Multiple Composes and create item in list

@wonka1234 What do you mean the column headers do no show up? Are you referring to them not displaying as dynamic content? That's odd, because I have spaces in some of my column headers and they show up.

Also, if you are trying to use an expression with your dynamic content—the dynamic content will not appear (see below on how you can use an expression to access the dynamic content).

Get Dynamic Content with an Expression
You can use an expression to access the values without dynamic content. In your List Rows present in a table action, limit the Top Count to 1 (so it only returns a single row of data).

Add a Compose action to store the value dynamic content.

Run a test. Take a look at the outputs. All dynamic content can be returned with an expression. You will need to know key for the content. The key is the text in red between the double quotes.

Use the item() function. Any time you need to access dynamic content, start your expression like this:
item()?['']
In between the single quotes, enter the key for the content you'd like to return.

For example, to return the Task Description, the expression would look like this:
item()?['Task Description']
wonka1234 909 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Re: Flow taking over 13 hours to run. Multiple Composes and create item in list

I cannot filter array as the column headers do not show up. I tried filtering array like this blog post - https://flowaltdelete.ca/2020/04/12/excel-filtering-columns-with-space/

my full workflow is same as above - however i did make a change based your tutorial to get rid of the first apply to items .
creativeopinion 10,439 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Flow taking over 13 hours to run. Multiple Composes and create item in list

@wonka1234 Can you upload a screenshot of what your flow looks like? Did you add a Filter Array action to your flow?
wonka1234 909 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Re: Flow taking over 13 hours to run. Multiple Composes and create item in list

@creativeopinion still took over 22 hours to complete. I only have the one apply to each now though. any other ideas as to why?
creativeopinion 10,439 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Flow taking over 13 hours to run. Multiple Composes and create item in list

@wonka1234 If you are returning a single table, you do not need the first Apply to Each action. Refer to this section of a YT tutorial on how you can avoid the first apply to each action.

I also you can streamline your flow by using a Filter Array action. To learn more about how to use the Filter Array action, please refer to this recent YT Tutorial I uploaded. Use the Filter Array action to filter out the rows that do not have a Start of Period date so you can compose a date dynamically for those items.

Can you provide a bit more insight on the multiple date columns?