Power App calling a flow -- flow terminate action only returning False

[MarownIOM]

I'm calling a flow from PowerApps like this:

Set(varReturn, MyFlow.Run());
Notify(varReturn, Information);

Which I get an immediate notification saying "false".

In my flow I am calling a Terminate Action

So I was hoping to send text back to the PowerApp from the flow.

My intent is to stop processing of the flow and return a message to the UI in Power apps using the Notify function.

It doesn't seem that the flow is actually being called because when testing the flow it takes multiple seconds.  The flow return value is coming back immediately with a value of false.

So is Terminate the correct action to take or should I use an "Respond to a PowerApp or Flow" action?

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

To send text back to Power Apps you have to use the Respond to Power Apps action.  Terminate will Terminate the flow which will be recorded in Power Apps as an unsuccessful run.  Since you can only have one respond to Power apps action in the flow you'll need to save the text you want to return in a variable and then send it back in the final action.

[MarownIOM]

I changed all my Terminates to "Respond to PowerApps or Flow".

But the PowerApp continued to show a notify message of "false".

I changed my PowerApps code to this:

Collect(varMessage, MyFlow.Run().Message);
Notify(varMessage, NotificationType.Information);

But I'm still not getting the text back from the flow.

The Notify doesn't seem to even be happening.

What am I doing wrong?

[Pstork1]

Two things that could be wrong.

1) The Respond to Power Apps returns a JSON object with properties.  So what you want to do is store it in a variable, not a collection.

set(varMessage, MyFlow.Run().Message);

2) When you make changes to a Power apps connected flow that affect the parameters, connectors, or return value you have to remove the flow from the Power app and re-add it back in.  Otherwise it won't pick up the updated snapshot of the app.  

I also don't think you can have more than one Respond to Power Apps action in the flow.  So its not as simple as just replacing all the terminates.  You'll need to save the string you want to send back where you used to do the terminates and then have one final Respond that sends back the result.

[MarownIOM]

I had a couple problems that are all resolved.  Thanks for your help!

The rest of this text is for posterity's sake -- in case others are having similar problems.

My actual flow contained parameters (that for this post's sake I removed for brevity).

Due to the weird naming conventions with "Ask in PowerApps" I removed my beginning PowerApps step and added it back so I could get the parameter names to look good.

(btw... to assign reasonable names to your parameters I did this:

Add a "Set Variable", immediately rename it to your variable name in the tile as well as the variable name field.  Then when you select "Ask in PowerApps" it names it correctly)

I assume that when I deleted the first tile in my flow (which was the PowerApps step) that it also broke my PowerApp Run command.  Which is why I needed to remove and re-add the flow on my powerapp.  It makes sense... but really, how would I know to do this besides experience?

My next problem was a type conversion between PowerApps and Flow.  One of my parameters was being passed as a number from PowerApps but being read in as a string into the Flow.  I got an obscure message but eventually tracked it down to typing.  Then trying to get Text() or Value() functions to work in either PowerApps or Flow made me frustrated.  The final solution was to change my variable name so neither PowerApps nor Flow recognized it anymore.

[Pstork1]

There is a new version 2 Power Apps trigger that will let you specify the parameters you want to pass in the trigger instead of using the Ask in Power Apps dynamic content.  It puts them all in one place and lets you name them.  You can also specify the data type of the parameter.  I highly recommend using that over the version one trigger.