Flow doesn't wait for Excel Online - Add a row into a table to complete before moving to next action

[dave-jorgensen]

I have a flow where I am adding a row to an excel online (stored in sharepoint document library) file, using the 'Add a row into a table'.

Immediately after that action, I am copying the file to a different folder.

the problem is, the flow progresses past the action 'add a row into a table' before the file update is actually complete, so the copy of the file doesn't contain my most recent addition. If I look at the file I originally added the row to, the data is present there, which seems like an automatic indication that the copy file action started before the file update was complete.

Is there any way to work around this?

[v-yuazh-msft]

Hi @  dave-jorgensen,

Could you please share a screenshot of the configuration of your flow?

Please take a try to add a delay under the "Add a row into a table" action of Excel Online connector as screenshot below:

Please let me know if your issue could be solved.

Regards,
Alice Zhang

[dave-jorgensen]

Hi Alice. No need for me to post a screen shot of flow - it looks exactly like yours.

I overcame the issues in the same way (adding a delay).

I guess I expected the 'adding a row to a table' to be a synchronous event, and that the flow would wait for that to actually complete before moving to the next action in the flow. Obviously that's not the case. Having to delay the flow artificially to overcome this works, but is pretty irritating and I'm sure causes lots of confusion / issues with users.

I understand that some actions, it's fine if they are asynchronous. Other times, users require an action to be synchronous, and certainly expect it to be so.

It would be ideal if actions had 2 things:

1. Some indication that the flow doesn't actually wait for the operation to complete before moving on
2. A flag to force the flow to wait for the operation to complete before moving on

[dave-jorgensen]

Really isn't a solution. The issue is, the flow doesn't wait for the action to complete.

putting in a delay is just recognizing that yes, the flow doens't wait for the action to complete, so we artificially wait. What if the 'behind the scenes' stuff in the action takes a long time, or server is slow, and now takes more than 1 minute? Then suddenly what you thought would work, doesn't. Extremely unreliable. That's why we need flow to actually wait for the action to complete

[moutinhoabreu]

I'm having exactly the same problem. The question is i'm trying 5 sec delay, 20 sec delay, going to raise to 1 minute delay. But if the excel file has more lines than my test what delay time it will be the appropriate ?

Well i'm fighting with Flow to populate an excel file form a blank excel with a table inside and had lots of barriers.

Begining with the obligation to have a template in blank, beucase excel doesn't acepts dynamic data on the file location and now when i thougth, ok, lets arrange a workaround this happens.

Super frustrating.

[ryanperrymba]

Anybody ever come up with a better solution?  As noted above, simply waiting doesn't guarantee that the updates actually occur.  In the settings there is a an "Asynchronous Pattern" option, which I thought might change the behavior and force synchronous operation, but no such luck. 

[ryanperrymba]

We've been aware of this and it continues to haunt us. If adding mutliple rows, we've had to add a delay between each row added so we don't innundate the server.  Back searching for a setting to run the updates in synchronous mode, and have posted an idea on the FLOW Ideas site:  https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/Synchrous-Execution-IE-Excel-Add-Row-Sharepoint-Copy-....  Please vote it up. 

In the mean time, we are just adding manual delays and crossing our fingers that they are long enough / we don't ever hit the server when it's too busy. 

[pmoricz]

Hey @ryanperrymba 

Have you found a solution for this? I have already voted up your idea. I've run into this problem multiple times now and it makes all my flow very unreliable!

[dave-jorgensen]

Guess you could try:

1. Count rows in excel file ( eg 10)
2. Update Excel by adding row
3. Loop until rows = 11
   1. Wait a little bit
   2. Count rows in excel file

[pmoricz]

thanks dave!

[iampegram]

The sad thing is, the connector can see the data as 'present' before it's actually written to the file. I have a Do-Until loop that uses the List Rows from a Table action to compare the number of rows to the expected value, and it's still missing a row in the final file. The row is present in the output of the last run of the Do-Until loop, but not in the spreadsheet file itself. Very frustrating! All I want to do is generate a spreadsheet and attach it to a list item...

[diegocruzb96]

They found a better solution for this synchronization problem, I had to create another flow that runs 5 minutes later, it is quite unreliable. ☹️

[eccountable]

Just in case anyone was wondering, I tried using the Do Until to check to see when the file size has changed after I have inserted some rows in Excel and found this is not a reliable solution either. This is what I did after a series of "Add a row into a table":

Hoping someone comes up with something better

[lika]

I thought about a solution, since I already know how many rows I need to have. Instead of adding a static delay, it's more reliable to add a wait until action and or do until control to wait for the count rows in the table. Ounce it hits the expected value then we get the content