Execute a flow only if another one is not running

[mmicsa]

Hello all

I have a situation that I need help with and couldn't find exactly what I need.

So, I currently have a flow running. That one monitors a SharePoint folder, when it sees a file has changed, it triggers, opens the saved/changed file and copies the contents in 2 separate excel files, one internal (safety purpose) and one external that users can do whatever with. Now, it turns out, they do things that break the Automation, so I would like to implement the following "fix".

A scheduled task at 1 AM that basically copies the know good internal data and copies it to the publicly available file. 

But, in order to do so, I want to check if the existing flow is running. 

I would ideally want something like this:

At 1 AM trigger => check if any instance of the original flow is running (is it Split, so multiple instances could be running) -> If Yes, wait 5 minutes, if No -> Disable that flow -> copy over files/data/whatever -> turn back on initial flow -> Done

I saw that Enabling/Disabling flows should be possible, but I failed in finding a way to monitor if another flow is running.

Everything is running in Power Automate, no other platforms involved. 

Thank you.

[abouchaalaBAIT]

Hello @mmicsa 

Here is what i suggest : 

1. Create a new shareopint list or a Dataverse Table with one field Named FlowXisRunning bool set to true.
2. I will continue the logic with Sharepoint : Create one item and set FlowXisRunning to false.
3. Copy the ID of the SharePoint list item (most likely ID "1")
4. In your first flow (FlowX)
   1. At the beginning of you FlowX Set the sharepoint list item with the copied ID FlowXisRunning = true
   2. Set FlowXisRunning to false and terminate flow.
5. In your second flow (FlowY): 
   1. At the beginning, Get item from Sharepoint list where ID=1
   2. Check if FlowXisRunning is true or false
   3. Continue your implementation

Hope this helps

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[mmicsa]

Thank you for the reply, but I don't think this approach will work for me.

As I mentioned, they may run in parallel.

If the first one sets the "flag" to running, the second one starts, does the same, when the first one finishes, it set's the flag as finished, but the second one may still be running. In this case, the second flow would run after the timeout, regardless on the second, third, whatever.

Or am I missing something? 

[mmicsa · Accepted solution]

Hello 

Based on what @abouchaalaBAIT recommended, I did put something together based on that idea.

Leaving it here, maybe it helps someone at some point.

Here's the gist of it:

When my "monitored" flow starts, it generates a random number between 1 and 10.
Based on that number, I write on Row ID (generated number here) that the flow is running.

The list itself is as basic as it gets, 10 rows, 4 columns, although you could get it down to 3. The Active just toggles between 1 and 0 (calculated column) based on the Running (Yes/No) value.

Doing this, I hopefully avoid 2-3-7 flows running at the save time and finishing out of sync.

Rows can be added if needed and random number increased.

At the end of the flow, I set the Running value to off and that's it.

Now, checking the Sum of Active was a bit more tricky. 

What I ended up doing is creating a view for the List that does a Group By on the Active column.

None running: 

At least 1 running looks like this:

Now, in the Flow of interest, I just query the list and count it. Is the Row count is anything but 1, I know something, however many, is running and I go into a loop to wait 1 min:

Count formula: 

length(outputs('Initial_check')?['body']?['Row'])

And that's about it.

Also leaving here another potential avenue to achieve this. Found this after I had most of what I wrote about in place so I did not use it, but it seems at least feasible to use and potentially a LOT easier: https://youtu.be/Heu4WGlnDm4?si=SpnnjhKnF1p2Gqz6
Long video short, if you use List my Flows, it gives you the current status of the flows as well, so just filtering on what you need should be a lot less convoluted than what I came up with.

Thank you @abouchaalaBAIT for the ideea!