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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Run Desktop Flow step ...
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Run Desktop Flow step and input variables

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Posted on by 96

Hi all,

 

I see in one of the recent versions, Microsoft added the ability to run another full flow instead of creating a subflow. This sounded great to me, as a lot of my flows use the same steps and it would save me from having to add as many subflows. However, I think I'm a bit confused as to the limitations of this step. It says that it "Runs a desktop flow which can receive input variables and may produce output variables. The parent flow run will be paused until the called desktop flow completes." The question I have is related to input variables. What does it mean by "input variables", and how does one input them? When I first read that, I was expecting the ability to pass a variable from the parent flow to the called child flow, and potentially beyond that in to another child flow below that if needed. But I see no place to pass a variable, and if I build a flow with an unset variable (intending the value to be passed in from the parent calling this flow), the flow throws an error.

Is there a special syntax needed to indicate that a variable is intended to get its value from another flow?

Thanks for the help.

  • Verified answer
    tkuehara Profile Picture
    667 on at

    Hi @IAQG 

     

    In order to use input/output variables, you need to create those ones in your child flow. In this flow, I have two input variables (Value1 and Value2) and an output variable (Sum):

    tkuehara_0-1626187376578.png

    Here's a print from the Value1 details:

    tkuehara_1-1626187550332.png

    And here's the child flow:

    tkuehara_2-1626187576906.png

    On your parent flow, you'll choose which flow you want to run and it will load any input/output variables you have defined in your child flow:

    tkuehara_3-1626187823364.png

    This is the parent flow, defining the variables NewVar and NewVar2 to be passed to the child flow "TESTING CALLED FLOW" at Param1 and Param2 to finally retrieve the Sum variable (from child flow). You can check at the "Flow variables" section that the interaction between parent and child flows is working properly:

    tkuehara_4-1626188061375.png

     

  • IAQG Profile Picture
    96 on at

    Ah, I missed the Input/Output window, now this makes a lot more sense now. Thanks!

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