Why does my power automate flow run twice for the same trigger?

[Emily2]

Hi,

I've created a power automate flow working off a SharePoint list. When the 'Stage' is updated to 'Declined' I want the flow to update the 'Declined Date' for that item with "today's" date.

The flow is set up and works! However updating the stage to declined is causing the flow to run twice. This is the only update I'm doing to that item when testing.

The trigger for my flow is 'When an item or a file is modified' and I'm using the trigger condition: @equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/Stage/value'],'Declined')

I thought that maybe the reason for it triggering twice, was because setting the stage to declined would trigger it the first time, and enter the date (as expected). Then the action of the flow updating the 'Declined Date' field also satisfies the trigger condition and it runs again although this time nothing happens (as I would expect due to a condition further on in the flow checking if the stage has declined and if so "do nothing").

To try to combat it running a second time I added a second trigger condition: @equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/Declined Date'],null), but the flow still runs twice. Can anyone tell me why? It's driving me mad!

[msabau]

I think it runs twice because the condition to check whether the flow should something or nothing is further down, not in the trigger body, so it has to run the second time to check the condition.

Check this for more solutions

Please 'Mark as Solution' if someone's post answered your question and always 'Thumbs Up' the posts you like or that helped you!

[Emily2]

Hi @msabau 

Thank you for your response. I did wonder if this was the case, which was why I added the second trigger condition: @equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/Declined Date'],null)

This should prevent the second run no (I guess not)?

The first run is triggered when the item is updated if the Stage is set to 'Declined', and the result is that the 'Declined Date' is set to utcNow(). This triggers a second run because the item has been updated and the Stage is still set to 'Declined'. But if this second condition is added, that the flow should only run if the item is modified and the Stage is set to 'Declined' and the Declined Date is blank, it shouldn't run again right? Because the Declined Date is no longer blank after the first update? The conditions further down in the flow mean when it runs again it doesn't update the item a second time, so it's not running an infinite loop, but as far as I can tell it shouldn't run a second time at all?

[msabau]

Your logic checks out, but there's no denying that Power Platform follows a logic of its own that sometimes doesn't coincide with common sense. I had a few encounters with it and it wasn't funny lol.

But yeah, just to make sure, I'd use the tried and true method of having a field in your list named "Flag" and using the logic I posted in my previous reply

---

Please 'Mark as Solution' if someone's post answered your question and always 'Thumbs Up' the posts you like or that helped you!

[v-jefferni]

Hi @Emily2 ,

You can try and use triggerBody for trigger conditions instead of triggerOutputs:

@equals(triggerBody()?['Stage']?['Value'],'Declined');

@equals(triggerBody()?['Declined Date'],null)

Best regards,

[Emily2]

Thank you for the suggestion, but sadly this doesn't work either!

Really appreciate the help thus far. For the moment, I might need to just let it run twice.

[opasyuk]

Double triggering continuess to be a problem. I have it on two flows. One that is triggered on new outlook calendar event created and anothe one on a dataverse row modification. THere should be some common problem that causes it.