My Flow never stops the do until loop

[ahmedhakam13]

Hi Power Automate Community,

I'm a newbie in Power Automate and I'm trying to create a very simple flow based on a sharepoint list that keeps sending a reminder through mail for when an item value is modified to a specific value to change it back. I followed several tutorials and did create the flow and it looks completely logical in my head yet whenever I test it. It starts sending the reminder e-mails but never stops when I change the value back. It has been killing me for the past two days and I have tried everything I can think of or find online, it is supposed to be extremely simple yet it's not working. please help me.

P.S. it works when I use a manual trigger instead. And I believe this might be the issue but I changed the concurrency of the trigger to 1 and it still didn't work.

 

[v-dezhili-msft]

Hi @ahmedhakam13 ,

Could you please provide a higher resolution screenshot?
The reason your process won't stop is because your Condition action is always false.
You keep comparing the same value.

Best Regards,

Dezhi

[ahmedhakam13]

Hi @v-dezhili-msft,

Thank you so much for your quick reply and I apologize for the low resolution screenshots. I did not realize how bad they are until now. please find higher quality ones below. 

Regarding the condition, I do not think what you are saying is true. I set the variable to true whenever the item value changes from Unavailable. Please check again with the better screenshots and guide me if possible. 

Regards,

[Ajinder31]

Hi @ahmedhakam13 , As mentioned by @v-dezhili-msft the flow never stops because Condition is always false. I understand that value might be changed in the background but in flow we are not getting the updated value and it keeps iterating on the same value.

Based on my understanding of flow, We don't require a Do until loop as flow will get triggerred whenever Item is modified. So just having a condition and subsequent steps should work fine. 

Please let me know if I'm not making sense.  

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[v-dezhili-msft]

Hi @ahmedhakam13 

Could you please show your run history?
Did you update the fields I circled below in the next steps?
What type of output is this field?
What I think is because your condition action is always false, so the flow does not run the Set variable action, and your Boolean variable will not be set to true.

 

Best Regards,

Dezhi

[ahmedhakam13]

Hi @Ajinder31,

If I'm changing the value in the sharepoint list shouldn't that reflect on the flow? if it does then in the condition that is inside the do until the boolean value should change from false to true when the user changes the sharepoint list item value. Please correct me here if I'm wrong but if I want to keep reminding the user to change the value on the sharepoint list via mail then I must use a do until. If there's another way to do so please advise. 

Hi @v-dezhili-msft,

Below is my run history, the succeeded runs are the ones were I change the value to anything but "Unavailable" as you might have guessed. 

Yes I do update the circled field manually during the run. 

The field type is "choice" and it has four choices one of them is "Unavailable".

Your answer returns me to the same question I asked @Ajinder31 If I'm changing the value in the sharepoint list shouldn't that reflect on the flow within the do until?

[Ajinder31]

Hi @ahmedhakam13 , If we change value in SharePoint list it will trigger the flow everytime item is modified as configured in the flow. However the value inside the DoUntil will always remain same as it's value at given point in time of specific trigger. If we will make some changes in List and follow the flow history, we will be able to understand the how it is working. 

As explained, Flow will trigger whenever values changes in the list. So we can remove Do Until and use Condition with subsequents actions configured. In Condition, check for current value of field and if it satisfy the condition then do the required operation. 

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[grantjenkins]

@ahmedhakam13 Looks like the others are helping you with your Do Until loop. I just wanted to understand what you're trying to achieve here. If you want to keep emailing someone to change a value back if they change it to a certain value, couldn't you just have Power Automate change it back automatically without having to email the person to do it manually? Just trying to work out if there's a better way to achieve what you're doing.

[ahmedhakam13]

Hi @Ajinder31, thanks for your answer but your proposed solution does not give me a mail reminder option for the user if he does not change the value. I understand what you're saying but still I did a test using a manual trigger instead of the automated value trigger and it was working fine and the DoUntil read the item value modification which is why I'm confused here. So my question is, what is different between a manual trigger and an automated one that makes the DoUntil unable to read my modification? 

Please have a look at the video in the link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj_gZ5zTNSo

it is similar to what I'm trying to achieve but using a manual trigger instead.

P.S. I also read about the concurrency issue and I applied it to my case which means I never get two flows running at the same time. 

Hi @grantjenkins, thank you for your insight. I'm still building the flow and it's not just simply returning the value to the old case. I'm expecting the user to choose one of other three options apart from unavailable when he receives that notification from his manager and change other values accordingly too. I understand that it might not seem logical when you look at it the first time but hopefully it will be after some alterations, that if it works.

[grantjenkins · Accepted solution]

@ahmedhakam13 The loop isn't exiting because you only get the data from your SharePoint list once (on the trigger). It will use that static data throughout your flow.

What you will need to do is add a Get item action between your Delay and your Condition using the ID from your Trigger. Then in the Condition you would use the field from Get item instead of your Trigger. See flow example below that should visualize what you need in this instance.

[ahmedhakam13]

It worked and I understand the solution as well. 

Thank you so much @grantjenkins!!