Power Automate is painfully slow

[adamjakab]

What you see on the screenshot is a few actions from a flow which completed after 12 minutes.
It takes an ID as an input, looks up a record from an API endpoint and populates a Dynamics entity with some values (5 fields max 1K payload).

There are times when the flow completes in 10/15s but still the lifetime(1 months now) average is 3:29s!

My question really is not how to improve the flow because if an `x=1` assignment takes 20 seconds I fully understand how a flow which should run under 1/2 max is taking 12 minutes.

My question is: are there some limitations on an account level or some concurrency within an account/solution which I am unaware of? Maybe we are running at our full account limit and our flows are being throttled? Is there somewhere that I can check?

Thanks,
Adam

[creativeopinion]

@adamjakab Could you expand your actions and upload a screenshot of that? It'd help to provide more insight. 

In the meantime you might find these YT Tutorials helpful:

Are you using the Microsoft Power Automate Filter Array Action wrong?

In this video tutorial I’ll show you 3 practical ways to use the Filter Array action and how to use it properly.

1️⃣ Cross-Referencing Data

2️⃣ Filtering by Key

3️⃣ Substring Matching

Did you know that the Condition action has a limit of 10 conditions? Although it might look like the Filter Array action can only accept one condition—this is not true. By using the advanced mode you can enter multiple conditions into a Filter Array action with an expression.

IN THIS VIDEO:

✅ 3 Ways to Use the Filter Array Action

✅ How to use the Scope Action to Group Actions

✅ How to Check the Number of Items returned from a Filter Array Action

✅ How to Cross-Reference Data in Excel with a SharePoint List

✅ How the Filter Array Action Works

✅ How to Access the Dynamic Content from a Filter Array Action

✅ How to Filter Items by a Key

✅ How to Filter Items by Matching a Substring

✅ How to Use Multiple Conditions in a Filter Array Action

---

3 Mistakes YOU 🫵 are Making with the Apply to Each Action in your Microsoft Power Automate Flow

In this video tutorial I’ll go over how to avoid these common mistakes when using the Apply to Each action in a Power Automate flow:

1️⃣ Looping through a Single Item

2️⃣ Creating Unnecessary Nested Loops

3️⃣ Looping through an Unfiltered Array

At the end of the video I share a few helpful insights when it comes to using the Apply to Each action in your flow.

IN THIS VIDEO:

✅ How to avoid the Apply to Each action with a single item array

✅ How to use the item() function to access dynamic content in an array

✅ How to prevent unnecessary nested Apply to Each action loops

✅ How to use the Select action

✅ How to convert an array to a string with the Select action

✅How to use the Filter Query field

✅ How to count the number of items in an array

✅ How to use a condition control

✅ How to use the concurrency control

✅ How to set a top count

✅ How to use Compose actions for troubleshooting

Hope this helps!

If I helped you solve your problem—please mark my post as a solution ✅.
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[adamjakab]

Hi,

There is nothing really to expand.
I am looking for an explanation for what can influence the execution in such a way that a variable assignment (like the one below) takes 36 seconds.



I am asking this question because the execution of this task is time critical so if it hangs or does not complete within 30 seconds then I will need to look for alternative solutions. I.e: get a developer to set this up. This is a trivial task and we decided to go with PowerAutomate so that future maintenance of the task can be handled by pretty much anyone. This is the power of PowerAutomate, no?

[creativeopinion]

@adamjakab Sorry for the miscommunication. When I said to expand your actions...I meant to click on them as you've done in your previous post to show the details of each action. It's hard to provide any recommendations without seeing what's going on in each action. 

[adamjakab]

Hi @creativeopinion,
There was no misunderstanding. I did understand that you were suggesting me to expand each action in my flow.
I however stopped at the first one because these are sequential actions and the execution time of the first action will not be affected by the ones after it. My argument is that a set variable action that takes 36 seconds tells me that there is something wrong and it that is cannot be the flow itself. There must be something (the platform / configuration / account limits / etc) which makes it run so slowly.
Anyhow, here are the first 10 actions. All are Initialize Variable actions mostly without even setting a value.
The average run duration of the flow is 12 seconds but there are times when it runs way slower (15min - 22 min).

[creativeopinion]

@adamjakab If you are using variables to just store values (without needing it to hold different values at any given time—I can't tell...based on the screenshots you've shared)—you should just use a Compose action instead. A Compose action doesn't need to be initialized (like a variable does) and it can hold a value for you.

Can you expand this portion of your flow? this is the portion that seems to be taking the longest.

[adamjakab]

As a matter of fact, for some values I do use the compose action in the same flow.
I have attached a screenshot of the compose action which ran for 12s.
I also expanded the condition it is a string comparison... nothing that should take more than milliseconds.