Flow not always triggering on moved files in Sharepoint

[Anonymous]

Hi. I have two relatively simple flows that watch folders for files, trigger an approval, move the file when approved and then triggers another approval.

The first flow works and moves the files as expected.

The second flow sometimes fires  and sometimes does not fire and I cannot figure out what is different: the files are generally Excel or PDFs, they are small in size and there doesn't appear to be anything different about which ones work and which ones do not work.  When the second flow fires it completes successfully. The second flow is not failing; it is not always firing. Any suggestions?

Flow 1 (works)

Flow 2 (doesn't always fire)

[v-bacao-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

It seems that there is no difference between the two Flows in the configuration.

The first thing I can think of is the way the files are created.

Whether you upload the file directly or create a new file in the folder, this may affect the triggering of Flow.

The second possibility is that the Environment in which the two Flows are located is different, so there are some differences when monitoring whether new files are created.

In addition, it may be that the second Flow trigger waits for a long time, so the feeling is not triggered. You can check the run history to see if Flow is triggered whenever a new file is created, although it takes a long time. .

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi. To clarify, the primary difference is that files are being manually saved or copied to the folder that Flow 1 is monitoring, whereas the files are being moved by Flow 1 to the second folder being monitored by Flow 2; normally that is the only way files get to the second folder. Thus the question: why does Flow 2 trigger sometimes --- but not every time --- that Flow 1 moves a file?

[Anonymous]

I continue to observe instances of the second flow not firing. Perhaps I am missing something obvious: if the second flow is running every five minutes (like normal) and a file with a modify date of one week ago is moved from Flow 1 to the folder that Flow 2 is monitoring, should it fire?  Is the trigger looking at the date of the file or is it looking for new files in the folder since it last ran (i.e. five minutes previously)?

[sacreberlingot]

Hello rsovitzky

More than 1 year later I just designed a similar circuit and met with the same problem:

manually drop file into a folder , then 1st approval flow is triggered to move the file into a designated folder; then the 2nd approval flow should be trigger...but it doesn't, while if the file is manually dropped into the 2nd folder, the flow is triggered.

Did you have a chance to find a cure for this? Or the process has to be redesigned?

Thank you!

[jason_c_wyatt]

One option for a redesign would be to have the first Flow triggering the second flow directly using an HTTP call:

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/build-nested-flows/

This would make the second flow run 'active' rather than passive.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the suggestion. I will give it a try.

[sacreberlingot]

Thank you for the suggestion.

For some reason I do not have the HTTP request connector. (sorry am extra newbie to this)

For some reason the 2 flows are working now (that is when the file is added into the folder by Flow A, Flow B is triggered).

I suspect the reason why it did not work at first is that: the approver in Flow A (an approval flow) was not signed into Office 365 when approving it. 

But for certain it works now when the approver approves in an 365 environment.

Thanks

[NotGreg]

Did you ever get a solution for this?  I am having a similar issue where moved files don't trigger my trigger, but newly created ones do.

[sacreberlingot]

Hi NotGreg, 

Yes my 2 flows are ok now.

I can't be sure of what has fixed it, but suspect it's one or both of the following:

(1) the folders need to have located in different libraries. I had to created a different library - folder for Flow 1; then when Flow 1 finishes running, the file is moved to another folder in a different library, where Flow 2 will pick up (by when files is created or modified)

(2) the approver in flow 1 has to be signed into Office 365.

Hope it works for you. Good luck.

[NotGreg]

@sacreberlingot hmm interesting...thanks for the feedback

My folders are all in the same folders.  So 4 subfolders and I guess power automate doesn't allow for that.

I'm not 100% sure how I will get the folders separated properly, but something to look into.

Thanks

[sacreberlingot]

Hi, 

I think this problem can be fixed by modifying the last step of Flow-1 to "Create file". Since the trigger of  Flow-2 is "when file is created/modified", the file that is "moved" will not always trigger.

My Flow-2 has been triggering fine since i changed last step of Flow-1 to "create" from "Move"...maybe "update file" could work, too?

[Zz1117]

has this been ever resolved?