Getting Around the For Each loop for Approvals

[LianaFielding]

I need urgent support!

I am creating an approval flow for new hire requests.  Managers submit a form.  I have 1 flow set up so that when a form is submitted it creates a line on a Microsoft List.  Then one person gets notified and reviews the requests and enters additional compensation details.  From there a new flow is supposed to start for approvals.

I have it to start with When a list item is modified, then Get Items.   It is to then check one qualifying question response.  If True, then an approval request gets sent to one person.  They can then Approve or Reject the request and enter comments.  I then need it to go to the next person to review, Approve/Reject and enter comments.  At that point if Approved, an email gets sent to another person with the details along with comments.  However, I am running into many issues. 

One note, I am not a programmer, so I am learning as I go.

• First, every step, PowerAutomate adds a 'For Each' step.
• When I create the next step such as the Approval or an email and am selecting items from the List, and including comments, it will add another For Each step when I am pulling in data from different sources.  But then things don't run or the next items happen:
  • Once the first approver Approves, the system is sending the second approver a request for that item row, PLUS the next ones in line.  So say we are working on line 8, it will send a request for approval for line 8, then another one for line 9, etc etc.  
  • Previously I had it all set up, so after the 2nd approver it would send 2 emails. One for the final person to do what she needs to do with it, and another to go to the original person who submitted the request. However, we had a backlog as we are trying to figure this out, and approved 18 at once, and it sent 18 copies of approval emails to each 18 requests.  This resulted in people receiving over 100 emails in some cases.  So I stopped that and deleted those steps to just send an email to the final person to act.  It worked as a test.  Then today I came back because I needed to change the 2nd Approver's email address and everything went bonkers and I can't get it to work now for anything after 1st Approver.
• At this point nothing is working.  I tried to separate it out and think ok, after 1st approver, I'll have it enter Approved on that line in the List, then create another flow to recognize that entry and then send to the 2nd approver.  But I can't get that to work.  My first attempt, it entered Approved on every single line in the list then retriggered the flow because the line was modified.
• Someone please help., My job is riding on this!

[creativeopinion]

@LianaFielding The reason why Power Automate is automatically adding the For Each (aka Apply to Each) action is because the Get Items action will always return an array of items—even if it's a single item.

To return the item from a SharePoint list (if it's the same list) use the Get Item (singular) action. To prevent your flow from triggering every time an item is modified, you may want to consider using Trigger conditions. 

Take a look a this YT Tutorial I recently uploaded: 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.

IN THIS VIDEO:

✅ 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

---

You might also be interested in this YT Tutorial: How to Get a Microsoft Form RSVP Response into a SharePoint List

I cover the following in this video tutorial:

✅ How to get a Microsoft Form Response into SharePoint

✅ How to get a Microsoft Form ID

✅ How to get a Microsoft Form response

✅ How to Build a Microsoft Form with Conditional Fields

✅ How to used Branching in Microsoft Forms

✅ How to format Microsoft Form multiple choice responses for a SharePoint multi-choice column

✅ How to parse a Microsoft Form multiple choice response as string of text

✅ How to convert a text response to a number

✅ How to use the Switch action

✅ How to create a custom email confirmation for a Microsoft Form submission

✅ How to Create a Custom View in a SharePoint list

✅ How to use the Compose Action

✅ How to write Power Automate Expressions

Hope this helps!

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