When an item is created (SharePoint) does not always run

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Posted on by Zango

Hi, I originally created this flow about a month ago and had been working fairly well.

However since last Friday (26/06/2020) the flow does not start for every new item created in the SharePoint list.

I have my flows first step to set the Workflow column so I know the status (this is a workflow to manage approvals of list items). Most of the time there is no issue and each item is set to active straight away. However for some reason, seemingly randomly, the flow does not start.

The flow does not fail - it just hasn't been triggered all together, so the approval for these items hasn't been started.

In Power Automate for the run history used to be very close to the created time in SharePoint, however now it almost batches items - or completely skips them. I thought maybe it was a queueing issue on Friday and it would slowly start running ones it missed however it does not seem to.

The three items started 33 min ago here were for items 3064, 3065, 3066. They were not created at the same time but they were created close to each other: 15:08, 15:09 and 15:10.

It would not be a problem if the flows were patched together in 5 or 10 minute cycles but it doesn't seem to consistently do this as you see it misses out items for some reason.

For the time being I have created a manual flow that i can use to kick start the process on items that are missed - however this is a manual task of someone checking over the list every hour or so.

Any ideas on why this might be happening?

I don't think a Power Automate admin centre exists in a high enough level to see whats going wrong here, and i really struggle trying to sort flows using it as i have to keep pressing "show 30 more" and i cant search for flows by name if they are not already on the screen.

I don't know how to judge whether this is a flow issue or a SharePoint issue either.

I'm also reluctant to "Stop" the flow as that will impact all the approvals that are currently in active in this flow and create a bigger mess.

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Using flows

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Priyae on at

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Hey @Zango

It might be region specific because my flows for SharePoint and that particular trigger have been running fine.

Can you check if you have not exhausted the quota/ limit on the flow executions or API calls based on your license? (refer limits here: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=2085130&clcid=0x409%20)

If you continue to face the issue, i would recommend to get in touch with support asap here: https://us.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/support/

Hope this Helps!

If this reply has answered your question or solved your issue, please mark this question as answered. Answered questions helps users in the future who may have the same issue or question quickly find a resolution via search. If you liked my response, please consider giving it a thumbs up. THANKS!

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Zango 76 on at

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Hi pre,

I tried to check the region of my flows by going to the environment like: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/regions-overview

However I do not have any environments

I'm not sure how to check how many flows/API calls has been done from this account - where can I find this?

Clicking on Analytics for Power Automate is just a blank area

My account has Power Automate access through the e3 license, so it looks like these are my limits:

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Priyae on at

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Hey @Zango

E3 license should work, share me one of the pending status Flow URL along with the screenshot of the Flow design you have . Let me have a look at it.

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Zango 76 on at

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Hi @pre ,

A pending flow url? This would be a link to one of the flows that is successfully still running. The issue I'm having is sometimes the flows don't start at all. A running flow: https://emea.flow.microsoft.com/manage/environments/Default-81d7e179-2a78-4b2d-8b7d-c006b46f5e8f/flows/shared/26eacb8d-b1e5-40f3-8856-3a83c45064f3/runs/08586078259923537089722066885CU102

This is an approval flow for the documents - so the flows may be running for a week or so before they are approved by the final approver.

The flow is quite big as I have up to 4 levels of approval that need to be ran before setting the item to approved in SharePoint.

The Each attachment block, gets attachment content to find if the attachment larger than 5mb (cannot be attached to approval email), and checks the file type, .txt has to be attached differently and .html cannot be attached.

The Update item wContractOwner - action is the part which sets the workflow column in SharePoint to be active - so i know it is running in the flow.

The Try section does some checks then uses the "Approvals" solution to send off approval messages

Then 3 Approvals are nested depending if in the SharePoint list names were entered for the different levels of approvers

I'm not sure why they sometimes don't run, for example 170 items have been added to the list since yesterday and they have all started. However on the dates 2020/06/26 and 2020/07/01 lots of the flows were not triggering.

I had a support call open through the PowerApps support and contact feature and they suggested I could be using more than my 2000 api call and get limited because of that. However at the times i was "limited" it would still let me manually start all of the items that had been missed from the on created trigger. They could not show me how to see how many api calls i was using though so I don't know how to confirm this - is this something that is hidden away?

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Priyae on at

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Hey @Zango

Thank you for the detailed information . You can check the below link related to API request limits allocations. API calls depends on the license you are entitled with power automate . If there are any throttling issue that should be also relate mostly to license you hold. If the issue is related to flow sometimes triggers and not , then this is related to intermittent occurrences. You can open a case to investigate on it further to check on a permanent resolution.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/api-request-limits-allocations

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Zango 76 on at

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Thanks @pre

From the page you linked:
I guess this means that I currently cannot see how many API requests I am using? So I cannot judge whether I need a different license?

And this suggests that it was just a coincidence I was having issues towards the end June/on the 1st July.

I have noticed one record today where the flow has not been triggered

3397 was created at 08:55,
3398 was created at 09:09 - did not start
3399 was created at 09:18

I would have thought this especially is a long enough gap so I'm going to start a support call about intermittent occurrences.

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mick_swartz 184 on at

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Did you ever figure this out?

I'm experiencing similar issues but wasn't smart enough to have a field that told me if it's triggering or not. Just noticed my populations were not equal.

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Sheref 2 on at

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Hi,

I am facing the same issue, about 2% of SharePoint created items not trigger the flow, I think is a bug PowerAutomate...

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mick_swartz 184 on at

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Definitely a bug in Power Automate.

Best solution for me was similar to above....add a field in that updates at the end of the flow to "Completed" or something, and have a nightly job to pick up all the ones that were missed. On initial implementation just use a one time flow to update all to completed or something so you don't double trigger all existing jobs.

Hope that helps....

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drohweder on at

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I'm facing the same issue as well...except mine is only triggering maybe 50% of the time. Has anyone logged a support ticket or enhancement request? For now I'll create a job to pick up the missed items as well.

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