PAD queries

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Posted on by nicklim

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Hi everyone,

I've a onboarding flow where it runs PowerShell script for creating on-prem exchange account and populates the fields in Active Directory. It works fine but the moment the onboarding flow is triggered at the same time or within a time frame of e.g ~10 seconds by another person, the first account will not be populated in Active Directory such as their AD groups are not being assigned.

I suspect that the first flow got booted off while it is still running when another person triggered the same flow? Strange thing is that the cloud flow run history is marking them as successful. So I can't really tell what went wrong.

Also, another strange behavior is that sometimes it WORKS even two flows are being triggered at the same time. So it is happening intermittently.

My question is, if the first flow is still running and the same flow got triggered by another user within, say ~10 seconds. Does PA or PAD wait the first flow to finish before executing the another flow?

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nicklim 391 on at

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It seems to be working fine now after I added some conditions. Did a couple of tests and it is so far so good.

Anyone know if the new action "Work queues" can be used in my scenario too?
Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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To answer your questions:

PAD does not support parallel execution of flows on a single machine instance. So, yes - if there is a flow already running in PAD, the other flows that should run on the same machine will wait for the first one to complete. They will be queued and will only start when the machine is available. There is no such thing as a flow "booting" another flow automatically. You can cancel a flow manually or via a web service request to PA, but you'd need to build that into your flow. It cannot happen on its own.

Yes, work queues can be used for your case.

As to the reason why this was happening, it is likely because when you did not have those conditions in place, you were likely overwriting/clearing some files that are relevant for all instances of the flows, and not just the current case. Make sure you have some dynamic file/folder naming in there, so that one case does not overwrite another one. You can then pass those file/folder names as input variables form the cloud flow to the desktop flow, so that your desktop flow "knows" which item to process. You can also use that as the contents of your work queue item, if you end up using that.

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nicklim 391 on at

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@Agnius

I think that is exactly what I got but it is still causing problems before I set the conditions. Also, based on your description and if I understand correctly, I shouldn't need those conditions or work queues action in PAD for the flow to run smoothly?

Cloud flow

PAD - Input variables

PowerShell script

Thanks for your time.
Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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What I can see from your desktop flow is that you have some static folder that you retrieve files from and then you empty it. And a file called "Running.txt" that you write to. Since I can see you wait for that file, I assume you create it elsewhere - either in the cloud flow or by triggering some sort of an external action that creates this file. This can likely cause the issue, if a new instance of the cloud flow can cause this file to be written to before the previous instance has used it.

Also, since the file is in the same folder that you clear with Empty folder, this could also cause issues if your file for a new instance is in fact created before the first flow is complete, as the first flow might delete it by clearing the folder.

That is why I suggest not using static folders and file names, and instead using dynamic values there.

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nicklim 391 on at

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@Agnius

Ah sorry I think there might be a miscommunication here.

Initially my PAD flow is just the Power Shell script action itself without the conditions. It is running fine but sometimes it loses itself if the flow is being triggered within a short time frame ~10 seconds while the first flow is still running.

It looks like this:

So I did a test by adding those conditions (refer to the 2nd post) and ran it multiple times to see if the issue is still occurring. The result was promising as it is working.

I just can't understand why is my initial setup not working correctly if PAD will wait for the active flow to complete before executing the other flow on the same machine?
nicklim 391 on at

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@Agnius

Also, I forgot to mention this. As for the Running.txt , I used the action to create the text file and passing empty value to it just for the purpose of creating the text file via PAD.

Sorry for the confusion.
Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Can you share your PowerShell script? Is there any chance that one instance of the same script could affect another instance in any way?

Also, have you checked the Monitor > Desktop flow runs section of your cloud portal to see the individual desktop flow runs and their details? You should be able to see what happened there. Also, I would suggest enabling the %ScriptError% variable in the Run PowerShell script action to be able to see if the script throws an error. PAD does not error out on a script error. But you can add a solution to throw an error in PAD if the script returns an error.

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nicklim 391 on at

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@Agnius

Thanks for taking your time!

I am afraid that I can't share the script as it contains a lot of my company details and it will be a hassle for me to go through 2,800 of lines just to remove them lol.

Nonetheless, it is working now without any issues after adding the conditions in PAD. Again, I really appreciate you taking your time!