Approvals flow - An action failed. No dependent actions succeeded.

[sudosaurus]

Hello,

I have built a flow which uses Approvals action within a Switch and inside an Apply to each.

However when the flow runs, the Approvals email is sent out and I am able to click on the Submit button in Outlook.

This then (for some reason) kills the workflow resulting in the error: An action failed. No dependent actions succeeded.

For reference, I've been following @RezaDorrani 's video "Power Automate long running Approval flows (beyond 30 days)":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Eb-F0P6Hs 

I am concerned that whilst I've followed the above video guide, I have too many Apply to Each actions which are maybe causing issues??? The problem is that this workflow is looking at data from two different SharePoint lists.

Another thing I've noticed is that this flow seems to trigger 3x when it should only trigger once (initially).

Full flow below:

I am using two Trigger Conditions. The first one for 'WF3' being set by a prior workflow, so this workflow will only start if the "FlowName" column is equal to 'WF3'.

The second trigger condition is set to 'No' in the "StartWF" column (taken from Reza's video).

For testing, I have set the 'Timeout' setting for this Approvals action to 1 minute - when this is in production it will be set to 29 days (to get around the 30 day Power Automate timeout limit).

PARALLEL BRANCH STARTS

LEFT SIDE OF BRANCH >>>

RIGHT SIDE OF BRANCH >>>
'Apply to each 3' is set to only run if 'Exec Director Approval' has timed out (left branch). 

This last bit does seem to keep triggering a new flow (which is what I am expecting to happen based on Reza's video. However each time I click the Submit button to approve, the flow fails and then a couple mins later it triggers again.

Thanks!

[wskinnermctc]

What is the purpose of the "Get Items - Declarations" within the flow?

(Also thanks for putting all of the screenshots it is very helpful.)

[sudosaurus]

@wskinnermctc thanks for chiming in! 

"Get Items - Delcarations" I guess to get values such as EmailAddress to use for the Get user profile (V2) action.
That sort of thing.. is it not needed?

[wskinnermctc]

Is the Email Address not included the "When an item or file is modified" dynamic fields? 

What I'm getting at is the "When an item or file is modified" is just like having a "Get Item" which is a single row on a sharepoint list. So you don't need any Apply to Each if you are just using that single item.

When you're using the "Get Items - Declarations" you are getting all rows from that sharepoint list and then apply to each one of them (even if you have the Get Items - Filtered it will treat it as multiple items).

Flows are much easier when using a "Get Item" or "When an item or file is modified" since there isn't a need to Apply to Each. Using any plural/multiple "Get Items" or "Get Rows" will require additional Apply to Each.

If there aren't other items in the "Get Items - Declarations" you are changing, updating, or referencing, then you don't need it. Just use the single item that comes from the trigger.

[sudosaurus]

@wskinnermctc 

So, for the items I’m querying from the “Declarations” list I’ll just refer to the trigger.

And for items in the “Colleague data” list, I’ll have to use apply to each to query those - for example, the exec director email address which is on that list will put the approval action into a loop, but one less than currently. 

[wskinnermctc]

Yes as far as I can tell. If you aren't using multiple items from the Declarations list then you don't need it.

However, I am a little fuzzy on how these two things are linked. To me it looks like your process is:

1. When an Item or File is Modified in SP List Declarations - Trigger Filtered WF3 and StartWF3
2. Get All items from the Colleagues SPList - Filtered if items column FormStatus eq 'Exec Approval Needed'
3. Get the User Profile from the trigger value Email Address
4. For All of the items returned in the Get Items - Colleagues - Get Executive Director Profile
5. Switch - If the Form Status 'Exec Approval Needed' - (Why use the switch when the Get Items was already filtered by 'Exec Approval Needed')
6. Then go Update the Declarations Trigger Item
7. Start Approval for the Declarations Trigger Item? (This Approval will run for Each Colleagues Item?)
8. When Approval returned - Update the Declarations Trigger Item (For Each Approval Response)
9. When Approval returned - Update all of the Colleagues items with Approved?

I'm trying to type this out an having a hard time following the Apply to Each. Which you're correct is probably causing the problems.

What is connecting the Declarations Trigger Item - to Items in the Colleagues list? Is there an item key?

[sudosaurus]

@wskinnermctc 

I've now removed FormStatus eq 'Exec Approval Needed' from the 'Get items - Colleague Data' action.

This is because I now have three 'Switch' cases:

- Exec Approval Needed
- Manager Approval Needed
- Exec Escalation

These are all based on different FormStatus values.

I've removed the first 'Get items - Declarations' action and am using the values from the 'When an item or file is modified' Trigger.

However, when I run the flow, I am receiving this error on the 'Get user profile (V2)' action:

Parsing OData Select and Expand failed: Term 'my@emailaddress.co.uk' is not valid in a $select or $expand expression.

This is the Header outputs from that action:

{
  "Transfer-Encoding": "chunked",
  "Vary": "Accept-Encoding",
  "Strict-Transport-Security": "max-age=31536000",
  "request-id": "eb89a2f2-d35c-434d-96d6-866a3cbe634a",
  "client-request-id": "eb89a2f2-d35c-434d-96d6-866a3cbe634a",
  "x-ms-ags-diagnostic": "{\"ServerInfo\":{\"DataCenter\":\"UK South\",\"Slice\":\"E\",\"Ring\":\"3\",\"ScaleUnit\":\"002\",\"RoleInstance\":\"LO1PEPF000013F6\"}}",
  "Timing-Allow-Origin": "*",
  "x-ms-apihub-cached-response": "false",
  "x-ms-apihub-obo": "false",
  "Date": "Mon, 13 Feb 2023 11:48:36 GMT",
  "Content-Type": "application/json",
  "Content-Length": "386"
}

*This was working correctly when I was grabbing the value from the previous 'Get items - Declarations' action. 

[wskinnermctc]

In the "Get user profile (V2)" action there are 2 fields.

*User (UPN)

Select fields

The email address should be in the *User (UPN) which you previously had and it worked.

The "Select fields" is where you would put what columns of information you want returned from the user profile. The user profile will have columns like (preferredName, department, displayName, jobTitle, userPrincipalName). You should just leave this blank unless you know exactly what columns you want. There's not an issue with just getting all of the columns.

In the "Select fields" you would literally type the column names, it is not a place to put in any dynamic content.

I think you have the email address in the Select fields blank and it is looking for a column name "my@emailaddress.co.uk" which obviously doesn't exist.