Help with Flow structure - Azure DevOps Automation

[AnaCostea]

Hi everyone - I am in great need of your help, as I've been struggling with this for several days...

I am trying to create a flow on the following general outline:

When an Epic is updated anywhere in the PLS Azure DevOps project (except for PLS/Ancillary), AND the Epic contains the "FUNC Graphics" tag, check if the Epic already has at least a User Story that is linked as "Related" AND contains the "FUNC Graphics" tag. 

• If True, do nothing.
• If False, create a user story in the PLS/3D Graphics area, copy the title, description and tags, AND link it as related to the corresponding epic.

After finding some distantly similar solutions online, I was able to create the flow below. It is set to check every 1 second. The only issue I have is that in our organization, epics get updated in bulk. And every time that happens, and the trigger identifies more than 1 epic that is being updated, so long as one of them meets the criteria, it creates story cards for all other updated epics, regardless of them not meeting the conditions.

Hopefully there is an adjustment that can be made to fix this? I am more than open to a completely new approach too, so long as it becomes reliable. Any help or guidance is much appreciated 🙏

[creativeopinion]

 I don't use Azure DevOps but I can try to help you troubleshoot your issue. Remember to rename your actions to keep your flow organized and test often!

Manual Trigger

I would recommend creating a new flow. Whenever I build my flows I always start with a Manual trigger. It makes it a lot easier to run tests and build your flow. You can either replace the trigger with an Automated trigger once you've confirmed your flow works and you are ready to go live or save a copy of the flow and adjust the trigger on the copy.

Personally I like to always keep a copy of my flow with a manual trigger so I can use it for troubleshooting and adjusting my flow at a later date.

Get a Work Item

Add a Get Work item details action. As your requirement is when an Epic is updated, select that as the type and specify the ID of the Epic.

I don't believe the Apply to Each action is necessary in your flow since the trigger of your flow is only returning a single item—no different than this test flow. The Get work item details action will only return a single item.

Compose Dynamic Content

The Condition action isn't very helpful when it comes troubleshooting as it only provides a true or false value. This is why I usually use a Compose action to confirm the output of the dynamic content I'm evaluating in a condition. I cover this and a few more other tips and tricks in this YT Tutorial: 5 Power Automate Troubleshooting FAQs and Helpful Tips for Creating Better Flows

In this tutorial I cover:

✅ How to troubleshoot a false Condition action result

✅ How to get dynamic content when it isn’t selectable from the list of dynamic content

✅ How to troubleshoot an Apply to Each action that isn’t looping through

✅ How to troubleshoot a skipped Apply to Each action

✅ How to troubleshoot a Filter Query

✅ How to use a SharePoint yes/no column in a Filter Query

✅ How to use Compose actions to troubleshoot a Power Automate flow

✅ How to troubleshoot multiple emails being sent

✅ How to troubleshoot multiple Teams messages being sent

For example, add a Compose action to store the Tags dynamic content—since you are looking for a specific tag. I can't tell what type of dynamic content you are using to evaluate if the tag does not contain the word Ancillary. Add a Compose action to store that dynamic content. For my demo, I'll use the Priority dynamic content to illustrate my point.

Run a test. Review the outputs. In the outputs you can see that the tags outputs a string of text separating each tag with a semi-colon and a space. 

Condition Check

Add a Condition action to your flow. You can insert the dynamic content right from the Get work items details action. However, I would recommend using the output of the Compose action instead. Since you'll be replacing the manual trigger with an automated trigger, you can simply replace the dynamic content in the Compose actions instead. 

Tip: The Compose action output dynamic content label isn't very helpful as the text just says Output. Hover over the dynamic content label to reveal the Compose action name. 

Run a test. Review the output. My output returned false because the 'fun' I used in my condition action was in lower case. The tag has an uppercase.

Convert Strings to Lower Case

To avoid case sensitivity issues—use an expression to convert all the text to lowercase. When you use an expression, some dynamic content may not be available to select.

Before deleting the dynamic content from the Compose actions, click the three dots and select Peek Code.

Highlight the text after the @ symbol and before the closing double quote marks. Copy it to your clipboard.

Insert an expression. Use the toLower() function. In between the parenthesis. Paste in the content on your clipboard.

This expression will now convert all tags to lower case.

Do the same for the other dynamic content you are evaluating. This is only required if users are manually entering in content. I don't need to do this for the Priority tag since it returns a number.

In the Condition, adjust all strings of text to lower case.

Run a test. Review the outputs. Now that the tags are in lower case and the condition has been adjusted—the condition returns true.

... more to come.

I'm unclear as to what's going on in the second Apply to Each action with the send an HTTP request action. If you could provide more clarity that would be helpful.

In the meantime you might find this tutorial on the Apply to Each action helpful: 3 Mistakes YOU 🫵 are Making with the Apply to Each Action in your Microsoft Power Automate Flow

In this video tutorial I’ll go over how to avoid these common mistakes when using the Apply to Each action in a Power Automate flow:

1️⃣ Looping through a Single Item

2️⃣ Creating Unnecessary Nested Loops

3️⃣ Looping through an Unfiltered Array

At the end of the video I share a few helpful insights when it comes to using the Apply to Each action in your flow.

I'll also cover:

✅ How to avoid the Apply to Each action with a single item array

✅ How to use the item() function to access dynamic content in an array

✅ How to prevent unnecessary nested Apply to Each action loops

✅ How to use the Select action

✅ How to convert an array to a string with the Select action

✅How to use the Filter Query field

✅ How to count the number of items in an array

✅ How to use a condition control

✅ How to use the concurrency control

✅ How to set a top count

✅ How to use Compose actions for troubleshooting

Hope this helps!

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@AnaCostea

[AnaCostea]

@creativeopinion Thank you so much for taking time to answer this. There are a lot of helpful tips in your reply.

You said "I don't believe the Apply to Each action is necessary in your flow since the trigger of your flow is only returning a single item" - assuming that here you meant the "For Each", at first, I thought so too, but this is actually where my issue is. Epics are often updated in bulk, and the trigger picks up several items that have just been updated. Trigger output value often looks like this:

        "value": [

            {

                "id": 446670,

..........................

                 "System_Tags": "ECAT 2024-YY Feb; FY24 PH5; FY24 PH6; PLS",

                "fields": {

                    "System_TeamProject": "PLS",

     }

            },

            {

{

                "id": 436013,

..........................

                 "System_Tags": "ECAT 2024-ZZ Feb; FUNC Graphics; FY24 PH5; FY24 PH6; FY25 PH1; PLS",

                "fields": {

                    "System_TeamProject": "PLS",

     }

            }}

And so on...

So the "For Each" loop should technically be needed...? Then the "Apply to each" is a loop that ADO automatically places my HTTP Request action in the moment when I reference the Id for each of the Epics returned by the trigger. Are you suggesting that I get rid of this somehow?

And then "Apply to each 1" was meant to help me identify the Story Cards that are related to each of the Epics that meet the condition. And enables me to then check if any of these related Story Cards contain "FUNC Graphics". 

The flow functions well, with the exception of when the trigger picks up multiple Epics (if they are updated at the same second). That's when it acts as if - if only one of the Epics meets the criteria > it goes ahead and creates the cards for all of them.

So, just for clarity, I really need the flow to:

1. Check if the Epic's:

- Tags contain "FUNC Graphics"

- Area path does not contain "Ancillary"

2. If this is true, I need it to look into the related work items for each of the Epics that meet the condition above, and then check if there are any related Story Cards that contain the tag "FUNC Graphics" (so it should check 2 times for the tag, once in each Epic and once in the related Story Cards of the Epics that passed the condition).

3. For the epics for which this is not true (but have passed the initial condition), I need it to go ahead and create a Story Card, copy the Tags from the Epic and then link it as related to the Epic.

I know it's a complex scenario, so if there is any other info that I can provide to help with solving this, please let me know. I can also archive the flow + Outputs if needed. Thanks again for all your help so far! 🙏

[creativeopinion]

@AnaCostea If that's the case, instead of using a For Each (aka Apply to Each) action to loop through each item and run a check, can you try a Filter Array action first? Could you use a List Work Items action instead with the manual trigger and specify a few Epic IDs?

Although it may look like the Filter Array action can only accept a single condition. In this tutorial: Are you using the Microsoft Power Automate Filter Array Action wrong?  I cover how to use the advanced mode to enter multiple conditions. 

In this video tutorial I’ll show you 3 practical ways to use the Filter Array action and how to use it properly.

1️⃣ Cross-Referencing Data

2️⃣ Filtering by Key

3️⃣ Substring Matching

Did you know that the Condition action has a limit of 10 conditions? Although it might look like the Filter Array action can only accept one condition—this is not true. By using the advanced mode you can enter multiple conditions into a Filter Array action with an expression.

IN THIS VIDEO:

✅ 3 Ways to Use the Filter Array Action

✅ How to use the Scope Action to Group Actions

✅ How to Check the Number of Items returned from a Filter Array Action

✅ How to Cross-Reference Data in Excel with a SharePoint List

✅ How the Filter Array Action Works

✅ How to Access the Dynamic Content from a Filter Array Action

✅ How to Filter Items by a Key

✅ How to Filter Items by Matching a Substring

✅ How to Use Multiple Conditions in a Filter Array Action

After adding the Filter Array action, add a Compose action to store the number of items returned from the Filter Array action. Please run a test and post your results!