Power Automate Daily Limits

[AmirBakht]

Hi,

So I'm aware of Power Automate's daily limits listed below. However, as we are becoming more and more dependent on Flows to run our automations, the action counts are increasing quite rapidly. Specifically, scheduled flows that run a lot of data manipulation eat up a big chunk of the action quota. I'm sure we are not the only ones out there preferring Flows over windows services and the likes for such purposes. 

Usually flows run under a single service account with the appropriate permissions and accesses for manageability, which would limit us somewhere from 5'000 to 20'000 actions per day depending on licenses. 

How is every one coping with the limits? Best practices? Recommendations? Alternate approaches? We are touching limits already and I would hate to have to start moving away from flow for these complications.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/limits-and-config 

[Jronash]

It is something we've run into as well.  It would be nice if there were an affordable way to add extra actions to an account.  Like you, we use a single service account to perform a lot of automated tasks behind the scenes.  We were brushing up against our daily limits on a regular basis.

Our options appear to be to purchase a per-flow license, which wouldn't really help in our situation because the actions are spread across many different flow, or to license a second service account, which defeats the purpose of a single service account with all the right licenses and permissions.

We ended up deleting one of our most action-heavy flows and recreating it with a Python script.  I'm not happy that we had to go in that direction, as it was nice to have all of the automation running in one place, and in a form that could be understood by everyone on our team, even those without a programming background.  But it has bought us some time as we decide how to handle this.

[Ketver]

Comically, I was coming on here to post this exact problem, but you fortunately beat me to it. I've created about a dozen flows, with 15 actions each, running every 5 mins. This is because the flows are crucial for updating data, so that we can address any and all issues as soon as they occur. As you can see with just this handful of flows, the licensing limits are quickly impractical.

I suppose my only option at this point is to purchase a second license for the 20,000/day limit.  Each flow only runs about 1,500 actions/day (counting office hours only), so purchasing the per flow plan is just silly and excessive. I understand the Power Platform is relatively new, but it seems a bit ridiculous that we are limited to only a couple bad options. 

[AmirBakht]

@Jronash I develop myself as well, but still prefer uncoded over coded where business requirements dictate the requirements. I can understand moving integrations and such to coded, but where business requirements keep dictating changes in the solution, you need something like Flow to not only give quick changes turnaround but also be (as you mentioned) adoptable by the variety of the teams.

[AmirBakht]

@Ketver the problem is, just throwing money at it doesn't solve the issue. Yes, you get extra actions per day and increase your limit, but consider this,

• You will need to split your extensive flows into multiple to split the action count
• You will need to manage permissions for each of the new licensed accounts 
• You will have to manage security and risk for the new accounts
• You will have to manage access for each of the new accounts, who owns them and who can access them
• You will have to manage how each account is spread out between flows and any other solution they may be used in
• You are spending more and now suddenly have even more tasks and risks added to your plate 

[AmirBakht]

Anyone else with any other ideas? No one here seem to be happy with their current situation.

[Jronash]

Is it possible to purchase multiple 'Power Apps and Power Automate capacity add-on' licenses and apply all of them to a single user?

[Paulie78]

@Jronash @AmirBakht this may sound like a really stupid question, but how do you check how close you are to your daily usage limit?

[AmirBakht · Accepted solution]

@Jronash that would be a good solution but I think that was not possible. According to what I have been searching, there has been no such capability till a little while ago. However, I just came across an article today which may be very new or recently updated (wasn't showing up in my searches before) that says we may be looking at something similar sometime soon "will be supported once the transition period ends, during 2020 Release Wave 2"

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/api-request-limits-allocations  

Capacity add-ons may be the solution to our problem but the information seems to be a bit limited. 

I will keep this topic open for now to get more suggestions and maybe more information on this upcoming support.

[AmirBakht]

@Paulie78 this should get you the information https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/billing-questions but for me it only shows activity.

Instead, you could click on a flow and go to its analytics to see its usage, that is premium though.

If you go to the power automate admin center and click usage, you should be able to see more flow analytics https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/analytics/flow 

[Jon7]

Hi-

We purchased the "Power Apps and Power Automate capacity add-on" through the O365 admin portal.

Does anyone know how to apply these new licenses to a user?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Would it maybe be an idea to use Power Automate Desktop. I am quite sure the "action" starting PAD flow will be only 1 action, and then in the PAD you can have all the actions running and only count for 1. Just an idea, I have not tried this myself. 🙂

[takolota]

For anyone facing similar issues, before buying too many capacity add-ons, you may want to check the design of your flows.

-If you are creating, updating, or deleting large numbers of SQL, SharePoint, or Excel records in loops, one by one, review these resources:

SQL Batch CRUD: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Cookbook/SQL-Batch-Create-Read-Update-and-Delete/...

SharePoint Batch Create: https://youtu.be/2dV7fI4GUYU

SharePoint Batch Update: https://youtu.be/l0NuYtXdcrQ

SharePoint Batch Delete: https://youtu.be/2ImkuGpEeoo

Excel Batch Actions

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Cookbook/Batch-Create-Update-and-Upsert-Excel/td-...

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Cookbook/Excel-Batch-Delete/m-p/1634375#M735

-If you have any loops running many times that include conditionals, consider using two Filter array actions, one for the true case and one for the false case. This means instead of running a conditional for every record or every instance, the flow filters the data into a true batch and into a false batch in just 2 actions.

-If you have many frequent flows that require initializing many variables before the rest of the flow run, consider consolidating many of those variables into 1 or 2 actions like in this video: https://youtu.be/TCIr7Bc3Oko

-If you have flows that don’t need to trigger for every instance of a trigger event, use trigger conditions.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Community-Blog/Power-Automate-Trigger-Conditions-...

I cut more than half the actions per day used in my entire organization using more efficient flow techniques like these.

[KarelVGH]

Thank you for these useful tips! I'll review some of my old flows to make them more 'lean'.

[MaxMustermann]

Thank you very much, this is a great solution.
I have an additional problem. I want to limit the access of the data in sharepoint list. In my case I have an excel spreadsheet which should be transferred to sharepoint list. In the excel spreadsheet in the last column are listed the users (max1.mustermann@web.de, max2.mustermann@web.de, etc) who are allowed to access the record. How can I change the flow so that all records are uploaded with associated access permissions?

[takolota]

@MaxMustermann 

I don’t currently know of any way to batch apply any item level permissions setting. That may still require looping one by one.

[slx299]

Hi

how to count the actions in a flow? What count as an action? I am running trivial business logic and still get message contains too many actions

thank you