Remove call restriction on Run Script

[Sakura]

Run Script to run JavaScript and TypeScript in Excel Online has the potential to completely transform how we automate Excel-heavy business processes, but it comes with a limitation of 200 calls a day. No matter what plan you have.

Without this limitation we'd be able to convert our VBA legacy into full-fledged cloud automations that we can schedule or trigger.
It would truly be a game changer for businesses that uses Excel.

Because of the current limitation, we have to look at solutions other than Power Automate.

Please remove the 200 calls a day limitation for Run Script.

[GeoffRen]

Do you have a rough idea of what kind of limitation would suffice for your use case or is any sort of limitation insufficient?

[Sakura]

Preferably no limitation. Otherwise we just stick with our limitless VBA or Python alternatives.

Our use case had a flow with 10 Run Scripts. We could still optimize that and bring that down to maybe 7, but that would prevent us from developing in a modular way and it's not really solving the bottleneck of call limitations. If the flow was triggered 20 times, it hit the daily limit.  We got to that limit just by testing it. Then had to wait a day before we could test again. It's similar to limiting a user to 20 emails per day and not telling them how many they have left.

Our envisioned use case had hundreds of users trigger the distributed flow multiple times a day.

When we noticed the limitation, we scheduled the flow to happen twice a day, without a user trigger. But the penalty is that our users now have to wait until the scheduled automation runs. And we can also not use Run Script in other planned projects, because this one project alone is already eating up the available calls.

Is there an intention to let us use Run Script as much as we can use other actions? And what is the reason for restricting Run Script?

[GeoffRen]

The intention is definitely to remove the quota limit, when/if that will happen is a different question.

The reason is cost. Every execution costs a bit of money and quota limits help control this. You can imagine what would happen if a group of malicious users setup Flows to run millions of Run Script actions per day.

The team is working on optimizing costs, in fact, the quota limit could double to 400 by next week at the earliest (this change is in preview right now). But other optimizations could include refining the quota to be smarter. Right now the quota is 200 executions per user who's credentials are used to run the action, but your use case would make more sense to be 200 * #UsersInTenant, or just 200 per user who kicked off the action. So then each user could run the Flow 20 times per day. Is that admissible?

[Sakura]

Hi Geoff

Good news that you are testing an increase to 400 for the time being.

I understand there is a resource cost to take into account on your side, and a smarter quota allocation would take us much much closer to our ideal.

I am convinced this will make a lot of business sense for Microsoft, seeing how many businesses use Excel and VBA automation.

Looking forward to what you have in store for us.