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How to remove an infinite trigger loop - Update items

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With my limited knowledge and experience in Power Automate, I set a flow where I try to automatically change certain columns' status' based on the outcome of 2 different kinds of approvals. (Feel free to propose a better flow structure - I know this is not the most practical one, but it's at least functioning).

However, whenever there's an approval request, I get the same approval multiple times. My problem is that even if I change the trigger condition to my email address, it won't be enough, because I'd need to add a different one for each country (35 different ones).

Any help would be much appreciated.

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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First, can you use the trigger "When an Item is Created" so that it will only run on a newly created item? You are using "When an Item is Created or Modified" which will run if there is created or changed. With your SharePoint items could you only have the "When an Item is Created" trigger?

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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If you can't use the "When an Item is Created" trigger and for some reason must use "When an Item is Created or Modified" then I'd recommend adding a status column that can be used as a filter with a trigger condition.

Example: Add a column to the SharePoint list and title it something like "ApprovalStage" and make it a choice type column.

For the "ApprovalStage" Choices have:

Not Started

Processing

Completed

So the default or first choice when an item is created should be Not Started. Then as a second step in your flow add an Update Item action. In that action, change the choice to "Processing". And let the rest of the approval flow continue as planned.

Then for the trigger condition

@equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/ApprovalStage/Value'],'Not Started')

So now this flow only runs when the item is in the Approval Stage of Not Started.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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With a slight adjustment, your second proposal helped and resolved the infinite loophole issue. This is the final trigger condition which eventually worked:

- @equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/ApprovalStage/Value'],'Not Started')

I needed to add an additional ")" at the end.

FYI: I didn't allow me to change and replace the "When an Item is Created or Modified" to "When an Item is Created".

Thanks for your prompt reply and help!

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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Thanks, I corrected my expression error.

You probably can't change the trigger because the rest of the flow is using it as a reference.

You will need to build a new flow from scratch and start it with When an Item is Created. Might be worth the effort since you wouldn't even need to worry about a trigger condition. It would be transparent what is happening.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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Yes, I should, but then I'd like to combine my 2 flows. How could I do that?
It's important that every request coming from MS Forms needs to be captured and recorded in the SharePoint list regardless of the outcome of the approval. (So before it gets submitted for approval, it should be in the list already).

1st flow:

2nd flow (which is already presented in my original post):
Also, I'd need to apply the same approval process to 35 different countries with different approvers for each country (CPO). Is there a way to do that as well?

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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Oh I didn't know this was starting from a form. Yeah you should be able to have a single flow.

Trigger - When a form is submitted

Get Form Response

Create Item - SharePoint List

Condition for Country

Start Approval

Update Item

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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But to really clean this up, you need to have a separate SharePoint List that contains the Country and Approvers. So all of the Approver information is in a list so that it can be looked up instead of having conditions for every country.

It would look something like this:

Trigger - When a form is submitted

Get Form Response

Create Item - SharePoint List (Enhancement Request List)

Get Items - from SharePoint List (Country Approvers)

You would use the Country from the form response to filter the Get Items of Country Approvers

Start Approvals

Update Items

Do you think you could make an approvers list to reference?

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Community Power Pla... on at

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I tried to combine the 2 flows, but now it just stuck (probably the 'Create item' & 'When an item is created or modified' cannot work together? - same if I'd just put 'When an item is created'.
This way I have the option to get the 'Responders Email' (who filled and submitted the MS Forms). If I have the 2 flows separately, I don't. Any ideas?

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wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

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No. "When an item is created or modified" is a trigger. And "When a new response is submitted" is a trigger. You only use 1 trigger per flow.

You only need the form trigger "When a new response is submitted".

There is no reason to have the action "Get changes for an item or file" since the item was just created. There won't be any changes to get since it was just made.

Basically you need:

Trigger - "When a new response is submitted"

"Get Response Details"

"Create Item"

Condition and rest of your flow

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