The biggest issues I had researching this, you answered for me. 10:40 "Now what's important to understand is this "Run child flow". This doesn't show up unless you are in a solution." 1:54 "And so what we need to do in order take advantage of these Child Flows is you have to build inside a Solution. [...] The idea of solutions is that they are like these little packages, little compartmentalized functionality." 4:00 "Your child is going to be an instant flow and we have to choose manual trigger flow." 4:35 "Also keep in mind as you're building child flows and parent flows, they both have to be in the same solution."
One day, I will learn that before trying ANYTHING new in Power Apps or Power Automate, I will look for a video from you Shane, and watch it first. You answered all my questions about Child Flows and why they weren't working. Thank you for the service you provide to us other geeks.
Thanks Shane, I keep on seeing your videos. Sometimes i get the answer and Sometimes I get stuck. However, your videos gives me right direction and approach. Thanks for efforts, suggestions and teachings.
Shane it's incredible how much I already learned from your videos and it's always fun to watch too. We can be glad that you are sharing so much content with the community. Big thanks!
thx Shane... That short, but pointed out - that those 3 items needed to be done before you create the parent saved me - this was actually the only place where i found this documented...
Great video as always, Shane. You are my top of mind Power Platform TH-cam channel when someone asks me for a place where he/she can learn more about these Microsoft tools. Thanks
OMG! you have just saved my day with that trick. I was thinking that the respond step would exit the child flow. I am delightfully surprised of this behaviour.
Hey Shane, what happens if you want to use Pipelines for deployment? If in one Environment>Solution we have the Parent flow calling a Child flow and then you opt to deploy to the next Environment - the Parent flow in the next environment will be referencing the previous environment child flow. Can we store the Child flow as an environment variable maybe?
Hi Shane! Thank you for the video! i got a question! Since i am building a flow with a lot of approval and conditions (now it reach it limit) i have to build a child flow. The things is that i am not quite sure what to do with the manually trigger the flow in the child flow (For example: the condition will go to True if the outcome of the approval is Approve and when i choose the input of Yes/No as the approvalstatus somehow it error saying that wrong datatype). How do i fix this?
Thanks. Do you think a child flow in a solution could be used to get a user input (eg keyboard) while iterating within the main flow? Child flow would begin with Inputs. I.'m trying, but I may miss something or completly chasing a ghost...
11:18 typooooooooo, was supposed to be CHILD flow (instead of CLOUD flow). However, you are right, it is NOT going to show up even if you type child flow :).
How do i set up a failed child flow? Meaning, the child flow fails for whatever reason, how can i send a response to the parent that the flow failed and it should therefore do another action?
Child flows can respond to the parent. So have the failure set a variable and then respond to the parent with that. Then have logic if the returned property is fail do X.
Great video Shane! Q… are there decision criteria I should follow as to when to use a solution for Power Automate and when not to use a solution? By default I never use PA Solutions, but maybe I should actually be doing that??
I really like solution for life cycle management. If you develop your workflow in an extra environment and publish it afterwards in your prod envirionment it is a good idea to use solutions.
Hi Shane. Great video and actually to the point of my problem. I was asked to create (at first) a power automate that read an excel sheet (up to 10000 rows) which has an email column (actually a line of display names needed to be converted to real email address). Using the List rows present in a table action I though I could benefit using child flow to send out email for each row from the parent flow taking advantage of the parallelism. That was a nice idea. But one issue came up, sending these emails must be able to send from a distribution group in the send as field in the Send Email v2 action saying sending on behalf of the person that runs the flow. As you said, that would be the connection owner in the flow. Then somebody told me that I could overcome this by using a power app that calls the parent automate flow. That would solve this. I guess you are familiar with this though. I tried it and it worked on the parent flow, but not in the child flow where the emails are being sent. Do you have a suggestion how I can solve this so the mail saying: on behalf of . By now I am always the sender on behalf of, even though other is actually running the power app calling the parent flow which runs all child flows. And a second question, in your video where you show how to open and select an excel file, can I create a collection directly in power app or do I need to use a power automate flow and get back a json array or something? Again thanks for you videos I learn a lot from you Regards Geir
Hi shane, ive been getting “Connection not configured in this service” error on my flows in dev. But when i imported that solution to a production envi, the flows were working there. Any idea on how to fix this? :(
Thanks Shane for that video! I tried it for a MS Teams flow, but I cannot add it to a solution. Or vice versa, a cloud flow with a Teams trigger created within a solution cannot be "seen"/accessed within MS Teams. Any ideas?
Hi Shane, thanks for this amazing video you really helping us improve everyday. Just a question: Is it possible to extract Polly responses on Teams and send them to a SharePoint list using Power Automate, can you please suggest some logic if there's a way to achieve this. Thank you
I haven't done that before. First thing I would do is look at the Teams Message and see if it returns the poll response. If yes then you should be able to grab the message, parse the result, and then sit it wherever you want. th-cam.com/video/KONkjjSYvMI/w-d-xo.html will help you understand how to access the flow message if you haven't done that before.
hello Shane, I really like your youtube videos and they are very helpful in coming up with solutions with PowerApps. when building I keep noticing that the font, and default settings for height and width of the fields don't match what I want, so in many places this means adjusting these settings. Is there a more convenient way to do this? Could you make a video about that too? thanks in advance!
Need your expert help on this Creating a search query with contains operation in "Get emails" action in power automate. Like : Subject:contains('subject','abc') with multiple conditions I tried number of combinations it won't work Exact match will work subject:'abc' Need to use like/contains operation for filtering the e-mails based on subjects. Assistance required.
I had the same problem, flows couldn't be imported. I don't know if that is a Microsoft requirement or if it is the way my employer has things configured. I had to create all flows within the solution.
If you're using a solution, would you always use a child flow, or are there cases where you would use a flow with an http trigger and call that from the main flow? Pros/cons? Child flow is a little easier to pass parameters, maybe, although I imagine you could pass a JSON payload either way. And with the HTTP trigger, you don't have to change from run-only user to hard-coded connection.
Hey very nice and helpful video, really appreciate your work and if possible could you help me in storing this result received from emails in excel or Dataverse or any data source.
Shane useful video as always, but one comment. This probably seemed like a separate topic at the time, but I feel like this video would have been FAR more valuable if you covered how to fire off child flows asynchronously - not requiring the child flow to return a value EARLY ON.
Power automate is extremely powerful in terms of integrations but so clunky in documentation and terrible to dev. It's the best and the worst. Microsoft being Microsoft.
The biggest issues I had researching this, you answered for me.
10:40 "Now what's important to understand is this "Run child flow". This doesn't show up unless you are in a solution."
1:54 "And so what we need to do in order take advantage of these Child Flows is you have to build inside a Solution. [...] The idea of solutions is that they are like these little packages, little compartmentalized functionality."
4:00 "Your child is going to be an instant flow and we have to choose manual trigger flow."
4:35 "Also keep in mind as you're building child flows and parent flows, they both have to be in the same solution."
Glad to help Adam. 😀
One day, I will learn that before trying ANYTHING new in Power Apps or Power Automate, I will look for a video from you Shane, and watch it first. You answered all my questions about Child Flows and why they weren't working. Thank you for the service you provide to us other geeks.
Awesome. Glad to help. 😀
Thanks Shane, I keep on seeing your videos. Sometimes i get the answer and Sometimes I get stuck. However, your videos gives me right direction and approach. Thanks for efforts, suggestions and teachings.
Glad to help
Shane it's incredible how much I already learned from your videos and it's always fun to watch too. We can be glad that you are sharing so much content with the community. Big thanks!
Awesome! Thank you!
Thanks so much! I would love to see a video that goes into more detail about solutions
I need to do it. 😬
Shane, You alway get where we get stuck!! My Hero!!!!! And keeper of Chewy
thx Shane... That short, but pointed out - that those 3 items needed to be done before you create the parent saved me - this was actually the only place where i found this documented...
Awesome Ole 🤩 Glad that it helped.
Thank you for the video explanations and the tips in having the respond at the beginning of the 'child flow'
Glad it was helpful!
Great video as always, Shane.
You are my top of mind Power Platform TH-cam channel when someone asks me for a place where he/she can learn more about these Microsoft tools.
Thanks
Appreciate that Higor 😍
Another great video! I cheated however by watching the video and avoiding the mistakes. Ran like a Champ!
Awesome.
thanks for the info i was struggling with the connection error now its ok after i did the third action
Glad you got it working
Hi Shane I really like the trick to put the response to the beginning. I hope I will remember in the future when I need it ;-)
Glad it was helpful and that Juan showed me. 😎
OMG! you have just saved my day with that trick. I was thinking that the respond step would exit the child flow. I am delightfully surprised of this behaviour.
Glad to help. 😀
Thanks for this knowledge shared. New knowledge gained
My pleasure
Another great video. I picked up a few pointers for future use. Thanks for sharing, Shane
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for this great content, all tricks we're covered. Cheers
You help me a lot again. Thanks!
Glad to hear that!
Thank you. This helped build the solution I was looking for.
You're welcome!
amazing explanation!
Glad it was helpful!
This is like respond to a PowerApp in a way. Can the parent recieve stuff back from the child flow?
Yes, the Call Child Flow has dynamic content that returns the fields that are passed back.
Thank you so much for this video. I got to this video after a year from its publish date. I got here...
Glad it helped!
Nice 👌.
Thank you.
Welcome 😊
Well Explained , Thanks !
Glad to help. 😀
Awesome videos as usual
I appreciate that
Hey Shane, what happens if you want to use Pipelines for deployment? If in one Environment>Solution we have the Parent flow calling a Child flow and then you opt to deploy to the next Environment - the Parent flow in the next environment will be referencing the previous environment child flow. Can we store the Child flow as an environment variable maybe?
Hi Shane!
Thank you for the video!
i got a question! Since i am building a flow with a lot of approval and conditions (now it reach it limit) i have to build a child flow. The things is that i am not quite sure what to do with the manually trigger the flow in the child flow (For example: the condition will go to True if the outcome of the approval is Approve and when i choose the input of Yes/No as the approvalstatus somehow it error saying that wrong datatype). How do i fix this?
Shane you're the man
Thanks Scott. Have a great day!
your awesome, thanks
You're welcome!
Thanks. Do you think a child flow in a solution could be used to get a user input (eg keyboard) while iterating within the main flow? Child flow would begin with Inputs. I.'m trying, but I may miss something or completly chasing a ghost...
For flows you'd like to break up as they would be beneficial across multiple "solutions", what would the best strategy be for those?
11:18 typooooooooo, was supposed to be CHILD flow (instead of CLOUD flow). However, you are right, it is NOT going to show up even if you type child flow :).
😂 That is why I love you. Always watching those details. Hope you are doing great.🐶
@@ShanesCows details is my middle name :). glad seeing you adventuring into the solutions world, this way maybe I'll start enjoying them :)).
Very cool. That Standard license requirement kind of sucks, but hey, what can ya do?
Standard meaning free. That is a good thing?
@@ShanesCows My bad. I read Standard and my mind translated that to Premium. Very good thing!
How do i set up a failed child flow? Meaning, the child flow fails for whatever reason, how can i send a response to the parent that the flow failed and it should therefore do another action?
Child flows can respond to the parent. So have the failure set a variable and then respond to the parent with that. Then have logic if the returned property is fail do X.
Great video Shane! Q… are there decision criteria I should follow as to when to use a solution for Power Automate and when not to use a solution? By default I never use PA Solutions, but maybe I should actually be doing that??
So far Child flows are the only thing I know only can be done in Solutions. 🤷 I should have a better answer on this but I just dont.
I really like solution for life cycle management. If you develop your workflow in an extra environment and publish it afterwards in your prod envirionment it is a good idea to use solutions.
Hi Shane. Great video and actually to the point of my problem. I was asked to create (at first) a power automate that read an excel sheet (up to 10000 rows) which has an email column (actually a line of display names needed to be converted to real email address). Using the List rows present in a table action I though I could benefit using child flow to send out email for each row from the parent flow taking advantage of the parallelism. That was a nice idea. But one issue came up, sending these emails must be able to send from a distribution group in the send as field in the Send Email v2 action saying sending on behalf of the person that runs the flow. As you said, that would be the connection owner in the flow. Then somebody told me that I could overcome this by using a power app that calls the parent automate flow. That would solve this. I guess you are familiar with this though. I tried it and it worked on the parent flow, but not in the child flow where the emails are being sent. Do you have a suggestion how I can solve this so the mail saying: on behalf of . By now I am always the sender on behalf of, even though other is actually running the power app calling the parent flow which runs all child flows.
And a second question, in your video where you show how to open and select an excel file, can I create a collection directly in power app or do I need to use a power automate flow and get back a json array or something?
Again thanks for you videos I learn a lot from you
Regards Geir
Hi shane, ive been getting “Connection not configured in this service” error on my flows in dev. But when i imported that solution to a production envi, the flows were working there. Any idea on how to fix this? :(
Sorry, I haven't ran into that one.
Thanks Shane for that video! I tried it for a MS Teams flow, but I cannot add it to a solution. Or vice versa, a cloud flow with a Teams trigger created within a solution cannot be "seen"/accessed within MS Teams. Any ideas?
Could the sequential execution problem be solved by turning on Concurrency Control in the Apply to Each?
Hi Shane, thanks for this amazing video you really helping us improve everyday. Just a question: Is it possible to extract Polly responses on Teams and send them to a SharePoint list using Power Automate, can you please suggest some logic if there's a way to achieve this. Thank you
I haven't done that before. First thing I would do is look at the Teams Message and see if it returns the poll response. If yes then you should be able to grab the message, parse the result, and then sit it wherever you want. th-cam.com/video/KONkjjSYvMI/w-d-xo.html will help you understand how to access the flow message if you haven't done that before.
Is it still possible to do this? I have been looking for the 'Run a Child Flow' option but cannot find it 😟
Are you inside of a solution. The flow has to be in a Solution for Run a child flow to show up.
@11:43 shane already guessed this type of comments.
but why does a child flow have to be a manual trigger? surely this is meant to be an automated process based on a trigger?
The parent flow is manually trigger the child flow.
hello Shane, I really like your youtube videos and they are very helpful in coming up with solutions with PowerApps. when building I keep noticing that the font, and default settings for height and width of the fields don't match what I want, so in many places this means adjusting these settings. Is there a more convenient way to do this? Could you make a video about that too? thanks in advance!
Why I dont have a 'Run-only-users' option?
What is your trigger?
Need your expert help on this
Creating a search query with contains operation in "Get emails" action in power automate.
Like : Subject:contains('subject','abc') with multiple conditions
I tried number of combinations it won't work
Exact match will work subject:'abc'
Need to use like/contains operation for filtering the e-mails based on subjects.
Assistance required.
Sorry, I haven't done that one before.
I created flows from my power app. But I can't add them to solution and so can't use child flow? User error or by design? Thanks.
I had the same problem, flows couldn't be imported. I don't know if that is a Microsoft requirement or if it is the way my employer has things configured. I had to create all flows within the solution.
If you're using a solution, would you always use a child flow, or are there cases where you would use a flow with an http trigger and call that from the main flow? Pros/cons? Child flow is a little easier to pass parameters, maybe, although I imagine you could pass a JSON payload either way. And with the HTTP trigger, you don't have to change from run-only user to hard-coded connection.
I guess another advantage of the child flow is that it can pass information back to the main flow.
Hey very nice and helpful video, really appreciate your work and if possible could you help me in storing this result received from emails in excel or Dataverse or any data source.
Please please please please do a video on Figma!!!!
Shane useful video as always, but one comment. This probably seemed like a separate topic at the time, but I feel like this video would have been FAR more valuable if you covered how to fire off child flows asynchronously - not requiring the child flow to return a value EARLY ON.
Hello
Hi. I hope you have a nice day!
Power automate is extremely powerful in terms of integrations but so clunky in documentation and terrible to dev. It's the best and the worst. Microsoft being Microsoft.
Can’t argue with you. If you don’t hate flow some you haven’t used it to build something. 😍