Sharepoint on create and on update flow gets triggered a lot

[bartvd]

Hi ,

I have a relative simple workflow in place, that chekcs if a certain field is empty, and if it is, it will set another field to Yes.

It gets triggerd on the standard : when an item is created or modified - SharePoint action. 

Each days about 5-10 records are created or modified. But still every 5-10 minutes, about 20 times , the flow gets triggered.

How can i solve this or even check why it is triggered. Does it trigger itself?

Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

Hi @bartvd 

I'm quite new to flow but I noted this behaviour on mine.

The thing was, for my case, that I had a reccuring flow checking some data into the records (if the reference number is consistant with the item), this had few consequences into my lists through the lookup.

But for my flow extracting data from this list to another list, this "check" was considered as modification (and thus it was triggered): even if the checking flow ended up without modifying anything (because the number was correct).

Have you something like that in place ? A flow checking items is considered has modification seems.

[bartvd]

@Anonymous 

I indeed have a second flow that sends an email when a another field is set to Yes.

So you might be on the right track, but there should be a way around this behavior, this is nuts, makes debugging a hell of a job..

[Anonymous]

I'm relatively new to flow, so I can't answer you further ^^'

I don't know how it count for the monthly limit of flow count (that I heard about in my organisation but I don't have or know any details on it).

Be careful that you're flow does not spam emails. I discovered this behaviour while trying to have a list do an extract and copy to another, I quickly ended up with 500 items created (due to this behavior and a apply to each into my second flow).

Besides, don't be surprised, but on my side I found flow that won't trigger on a modification, so I currently wonder on what is a modification for flow.

EDIT: another possibility for you to test is to create a dedicated test environment:

• clone your list
• clone your flow

But only what you need to launch the flow, or what is impacted by the flow.

Then build your flow from scratch and look the behavior.

At this point, you will then also be able to post screens without worrying about confidentiality 😉

I do that also quite regularly, even if time consuming, to understand the behavior and find solutions,

Cheers,

[bartvd]

Well, for now , as a test, I disabled one flow and just have my mail flow in place, i am following the logs, but nothing has trigered in 10 minutes so far = expected behavior.

In the mail flow i have a check that only my test records send mails.

So i am pretty sure that no real mail gets send.

It looks like you were indeed right with your first assumption. The chekc is indeed also seens as an update.

[Anonymous]

Glad to read this @bartvd 

But, just as a warning, I found this out in the following topic: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Modifying-a-list-item-doesn-t-start-a-new-flow-wh...

See Harry G answers.

So depending on your plan, the modification side can have various cooldowns.

I don't know if it is of matter to you or if everything is solved 😉

Have a good day,

[bartvd · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous 

The only solution for me, it seems, is having 1 flow and use dynamic branching that way it doesnt trigger as much.

So now it is really showing normal behavior.

If one flow checks a line, it is indeed regarded as an update, which willt rigger the second flow, which then will trigger the first on agian, and so on.