SharePoint Flow turned off, Items added to list, turned flow on, it fired for all items.

[smyjafri]

Hey, I created a Flow on SharePoint list, it sends email notification to different users on the basis of different data fields. Now I wanted to add some records in such a way it does not send any notification. I turned off the flow and made the changes to the list by adding new items. But as soon as i turned the flow on it started running for the new items which I added while flow was off. Is it the right behavior? If so then what is the purpose of turning it off? How can I achieve this that flow does not operate when I put it off?

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @smyjafri,

When testing this issue, it returns the same result as you mentioned. Though I turned off the flow to make changes on the list, but it started running as soon as I turned on the flow for the changes I made on the list.

There is a similar request on the Flow Ideas Forum, please vote the idea at here, PGs will take hot ideas into consideration in the future releases:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/Turning-off-Flow-and-turning-back-on-still-create-new...

Besides, I will help confirm this issue on my side further.

Best regards,

Mabel Mao

[ScottShearer · Accepted solution]

@smyjafri:

One work around might be to edit your Flow and put a Control-Terminate action at the top of the Flow immediately following the trigger and save it.  That way, the Flow will run but won't send out any emails or otherwise cause issues while you are adding the new items.  When you are through adding the new items, remove the Control-Terminate action and save.  I am assuming that the Flow will not be turned off.

If this works for you, please mark your question as Solved.

Scott

[smyjafri · Accepted solution]

Thank you @ScottShearer. I do not know wether its a right solution or not but this is definitely a super workaround. It worked for me.

Thank. 

Once again thanks @ScottShearer and @v-yamao-msft for the help and replying.

[SJNBham]

A workaround we figured out is to disable the workflow, import/update the list data, make a copy of the disabled workflow, delete the original workflow, and then turn on the new copy of the workflow. The tracking of whether an item has a pending create/update event seems to be tied to the original workflow. If you use the terminate action method instead, you'll end up with potentially tens of thousands of workflows that fire and don't do anything but terminate. However, those workflows take time to complete and count toward limits. It would be great if Microsoft provided an option to turn off a flow and select whether create/update events should be tracked while the flow is disabled.