Power Automate Pain-Relief #1
Series kickoff! In Power Automate Common Issues & Problems we’ll break down one pain point per post and walk through a real-world fix you can use today.
1. Meet the Pain (⚠️ Hyperactive Triggers)
You build a “When an item is created or modified” SharePoint flow.
At 02:00 AM a calculated column refreshes ➜ 15 000 list items count as “modified” ➜ 15 000 flow runs spin up.
Your mailbox explodes, API limits melt, and the finance team wonders why last night cost an extra $15 in pay-as-you-go fees.
2. Why It Hurts (💸 & ⚡)
- License meter on fire – every run consumes your 5 000/15 000 monthly run quota (Seeded / Per-User).
- Pay-as-you-go shock – 375 000 actions × $0.00004 ≈ $15 per night.
- Tenant throttling – bursty traffic eats the 40 000-request user cap; mission-critical flows queue behind your mistake.
- Forced upgrades & add-ons – you’ll be nudged toward a $50–$100 capacity pack just to regain service stability.
3. The Quick-Relief Toolkit 🛠️
| Fix | How to apply | Cost & run impact |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger Conditions | Trigger → Settings → Trigger conditions@equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/Status'],'Pending')(see #3 on the screenshot below) | Runs fire only when business fields match ➜ >90 % fewer runs |
| Column Change Detection | In SP trigger enable “Trigger only when these columns change” | Ignores calculated/system updates |
| Switch to “Created” | If you never process edits, use When an item is created | Cuts duplicate runs entirely |
| Reduce Polling Cadence | Recurrence & SQL triggers ➜ interval ≥ 15 min | Fewer polls → lower quota usage |
| Concurrency = 1 | Trigger → Settings → Concurrency → 1(see ##1,2 on the screenshot below) | Prevents overlapping duplicate runs |
| Processed Flag Pattern | Add Processed (Yes/No) column ➜ filter Processed ne 1 ➜ set Yes at end | Guarantees exactly one run per item |
4. Step-by-Step Walk-Through
- Open the trigger settings of your flow.
- Scroll to Trigger conditions and paste the OData expression that fits your scenario.
- Save the flow ➜ Notice the lightning bolt icon turns yellow (indicates a filtered trigger).
- In 20 min check Run History — you should see drastically fewer new runs.
* Optional: turn on Service limits alerts in Power Platform Admin Center to receive an email before you ever hit quota again.
5. Pro Tips for Future-You 🌟
- Name wisely – prefix flows with
TRG-CR(created) orTRG-CM(created-modified) so teammates know trigger type at a glance. - ALM pipelines – use PAC CLI in Azure DevOps to export/import solutions; trigger conditions carry over cleanly.
- Monitor like Ops – pipe Flow analytics into Application Insights; create an alert on “Runs > 500 per hour”.
- Budget guardrails – set up a Power BI dashboard of daily action counts and share with finance.
6. TL;DR Recap
Hyperactive triggers don’t just clutter run history—they burn through API limits and budgets. A single trigger condition or change-tracking setting can slash run counts by 97 % and keep you off the CFO’s radar.
Stay tuned for Post #2: “Slow ‘Get items’? Fix It Fast” where we’ll tackle slow connector performance and paging best practices.