Flow Running Too Many Actions

[SCastille]

I have done a search on this topic and found several posts.  I read through some and watched a few of the videos.  However, I am too new at this and do not understand.  This is the first flow I have ever developed.  It worked great and then I log into work this morning and receive the email from MS PA that it has too many actions. 😑  Would anyone be willing to hold my hand and help out?  This was supposed to go into the first phase of testing this week, but now this has happened.

Outline of the flow:

- Get MS Form response from Group Form

- Create SP list item

- Update SP List item custom ID column

- Send emails.

The form branches if the response is an OR request. If Yes, they must include attachment.  If No, then a second question on the form is optional for whether they want to include an attachment.  Also one of questions on the form is a multi-select choice.  There are 3 optional date questions on the form. I added compose stmts to the flow for each in the event they were left blank.

I suspect the problem is where I got fancy and added a logo to the email.  The flow fetches file content...I am so green, but I from the little I understood reading so far...

Here are screen shots from Process Mining - I can't make heads or tails of it, but I do see the highlighted "cases" for Variant 1 below.  I don't know what this means at all.  How could there be 3310 cases?

Here is the summary and I see crazy item counts and 3330 runs?  Again, don't know what this means. And if you can help, I will need a handholding. 

Screenshots of the flow: (Apologies in advance if this is tmi)

[David_MA]

You should blackout some of the information in your screen shots. For example, the e-mail action shows the e-mail address of the person you are notifying. For data privacy, information such as this should not be posted in the forums as it is not needed to assist with the majority of questions. Even if it were needed, information like that should only be shared with people you trust. These forums are open for anyone to participate.

Based on your screen shots, I don't think the issue is too many actions. You can have up to 500 actions in a workflow, and I don't see that in your flow. 

As for the cases or number of runs of your flow being over 3,000, you may have created an infinite/endless loop in your flow. Although, I don't see how that is possible based on your trigger condition.  Since you show some information in your screen shots that you should not include (e-mail addresses and website URLs), someone may be trying to attempt a DNS attack on you by flooding your form with a bunch of requests. Go to your Microsoft Form and check how many responses have been submitted there. If the number matches up with your flow, then there isn't anything to worry about as long as all of the submissions are legitimate.

[SCastille]

Thank you for your response and your words of caution.  I usually take steps to ensure I redact identifying information.  FTR, the email address is mine. I work for a government entity and therefore, my email is not private.    However, I did delete all the images containing identifying information.

I checked the form and it shows 6 responses.  Therefore, it would seem I have somehow created an infinite loop.  I am just learning and am unable to determine how I managed that.  I guess I will go back to the drawing board and try to redo it from scratch trying a different approach.   Although I am not sure how to manage that when I don't know what the problem is that I am trying to fix.  

Could I troubleshoot by recreating the flow, one step at a time and stopping between each to create a process mining preview?  In other words, would the process mining preview trigger a crazy number of runs when it encounters a infinite loop?

[SCastille]

Oh my!  I just realized the email telling me the flow is running too many actions is related to a different flow I created.  Not the one in my original post above. --> head desk.

This flow updates a SharePoint Item when it is modified.  I will review and try to understand the link you provided above to see if I can figure out the solution.

[David_MA]

If your MS Forms data only shows six responses, I don't see how it is possible for your flow to have run over 3,000 times when you have the trigger When a new response is submitted. Hopefully someone will have an explanation. Good luck.

[David_MA]

You can probably replace your condition with a trigger condition to prevent the infinite loop. If your flow should only run when you Date_Co... field is not empty and the field you are updating is empty, it should be easy enough to create a trigger condition. 

This isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, but here is a trigger I have for a flow that runs when an item is updated. 

It runs when the yes/no field Change Request is Yes (true) and the Change Request Date is empty/null. When the flow runs, it populates the Change Request Date in the update action with the last modified date. This prevents the flow from triggering again when you update the field.

Another even simpler way to do this is to check if the list is being updated by the workflow. As long as you don't need to update any of the items, you can check to see if the e-mail address of the owner of the flow (you) has modified the item:

@not(triggerOutputs()?['body/Editor/Email'],'emailaddress@domain.com')

Just replace the e-mail address with the flow owner's e-mail address.