Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Trying to understand the difference between Top Count and Pagination (and why there are two things that seem to be so similar)

I'm using the Get Files (Properties Only) action to kick off a flow moving files from a library with ~10,000 items in it.

I initially ran it with pagination turned off and a Top Count of 10,000, and it retrieved 4997 and ran successfully.

After the initial run Get Files (Properties Only) would not retrieve any of the remaining files until I turned on Pagination, then it retrieved the remaining 5325 and is currently running no problem.

Why did it work on the first 4997 files without Pagination? What is the difference between Pagination and Top Count?

I found this post but the answer here doesn't seem to apply--the number of files after my initial run did not exceed the top count like this implies https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/top-count-vs-pagination/66890e1e-6591-48bf-99b3-9fd0c875938c

Thanks in advance

Categories:

Building flows

The difference is very simple. If pagination is disabled, which is the default, then Top Count is the number of items that will be retrieved from the Data Source. If pagination is enabled then Top Count is the size of the page. So with pagination enabled and Top Count set to 200 the system will make multiple calls to the data source and retrieve 200 items per call until it reaches whatever limit you've set in Pagination. With pagination enabled the system keeps track of where it left off when making additional trips to the data source. With pagination disabled it always starts with the first item.

Running with a high Top Count, like 10,000, is very inefficient. That's why it could only return 4,997 of the files you requested. Top Count should normally be set somewhere between 100 ( the default) and 500. If you need more items then pagination should be enabled.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If this Post helped you, please click "Does this answer your question" and give it a like to help others in the community find the answer too!

Paul Papanek Stork, MVP
Blog: https://www.dontpapanic.com/blog