Which Run Trigger option must be selected for the Flow to execute every time the condition is met

Article
06/24/2022
2 minutes to read

A trigger is an event that starts a cloud flow. For example, if you want to get a notification in Microsoft Teams when someone sends you an email, in this case you receiving an email is the trigger that starts this flow.

Power Automate offers connectors to services such as SharePoint and Outlook. Most connectors offer prebuilt triggers that you can use to start your flows. Here's a partial look at the triggers that Office 365 Outlook connector provides by default.

Choose the right trigger

Triggers can be started instantly or manually, on a schedule, or automatically when an external event (such as when an email arrives) occurs.

Triggers for instant/manual flows

If you'd like to run a cloud flow with a tap of a button on your mobile device, to remind your team to join the daily team meeting, create an instant flow (button flow). You can trigger these flows manually from any device.

Learn more about instant flows.

Triggers for scheduled flows

If you'd like to run a cloud flow on a schedule, for example, to send a weekly project report, create a scheduled flow. In scheduled flows, you can choose when (date and time) and frequency (monthly/daily/hourly, etc.).

Triggers for automated flows

If you'd like to create a cloud flow that performs tasks automatically after an event occurs, for example, a cloud flow that notifies you by email when someone tweets with a keyword you specify, create an automated flow.

Add a trigger to an existing flow

Edit the flow and then select add a new step.
Search for the connector and then select the app icon. This screenshot shows the results if you search for "Share".
Once selected, the corresponding triggers and actions will be shown. Choose the trigger that best suits your needs.

Important

The trigger must be the first step of the flow.

Licensing for premium connectors

You need a standalone Power Apps license or Power Automate license to access all premium, on-premises, and custom connectors. Microsoft 365 plan licensees can use standard connectors but cannot use premium connectors.

Here's a screenshot that displays some of the premium connectors that are available in Power Automate.

Follow these steps to find your license.

Go to Power Automate
Select My flows.
Select a cloud flow.
Go to the Details section, and view the details under Plan.

Customize a trigger by adding conditions

Sometimes, you may need to customize a trigger so that it fires only when certain conditions are met. For example, you may be using SharePoint's When an item is created or modified trigger in Power Automate. This trigger fires for every change to SharePoint items but you might want the flow to only trigger when an item is created or the status is marked as Approved. While you can filter other events by adding conditions to the flow, the flow still runs and the calls are counted as an API request, causing you to reach your API request limits faster. To avoid it, you can write expressions in trigger conditions, avoiding a run if the condition in trigger isn't met.

You may also need to secure the trigger inputs and outputs in the run history of a cloud flow. To do this, you can turn on the secure input or secure output setting in the trigger.

Article
08/29/2022
12 minutes to read

Here are a few tips and tricks for troubleshooting issues with triggers.

Identify specific flow run

Once you build and deploy your flows, you might need to debug specific flow runs to confirm that your flow ran as expected. By default, the flow owner can look at the Start, Duration, and Status columns in the run history view in Power Automate to help them identify the flow run they are interested in debugging. The owner can also expand the troubleshooting section to identify the specific run in which they are interested, however, for flows that run frequently, this can be time-consuming.

To make it more efficient to identify flow runs when debugging, Power Automate provides the ability for flow owners to configure the list of columns that's displayed on the run history page for each flow run. These columns map to the trigger outputs for your flow. When you display the columns you want, you save time since you will see the relevant columns by default on the run history view.

Follow these steps to add one or more columns to your run history view.

Sign in to Power Automate.
Select My flows from the left side of the screen.
Select the flow for which you want to get more details.
Select Edit columns on the flow details page.
Select the columns that you want to add to your run history view for the flow that you've selected, and then select Save.

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View the list of columns that displays on the run history view for the flow you've selected.

Note that hasAttachments and isHTML columns are now visible for the flow so that you can quickly see those values to help you debug the flow.

Tip

You can also configure the list of columns that's displayed via the All runs view.

My trigger doesn’t fire

A data loss prevention policy could be to blame.

Admins can create data loss prevention (DLP) policies that can act as guardrails to help prevent users from unintentionally exposing organizational data. DLP policies enforce rules for which connectors can be used together by classifying connectors as either Business or Non-Business. If you put a connector in the Business group, it can only be used with other connectors from that group in any given app or flow.

If your flow violates a DLP policy, it will be suspended, causing the trigger to not fire. To know if your flow is suspended, try to edit the flow and save it. The Flow checker will report it if the flow is violating a DLP policy. Your admin can change the DLP policy.
The trigger may be failing.

To confirm:
1. Go to My flows and then select your flow.
2. Do you see the following error in the Details?
This error means that Power Automate tried multiple times to establish a connection to register the trigger and failed. Your flow won't trigger until this problem is resolved.

One of the common reasons for the failure is that the Power Automate service end points are not part of the allow list. To fix it, confirm that your IT department has added these endpoint to the allow list.

Here is the list of IP addresses and domains that need to be added to your allow list.

Refer to this support article to know more about how to fix issues with triggers.

Once the problem is resolved, modify the flow, save it, and then change it back and save again. The flow becomes aware that it's configuration changed, and tries to register its trigger again.

Verify connections

With the default settings, users only need to login to a connection once. They can then use that connection until it's revoked by an admin. A possible scenario is that the password for the connection can expire or there might be a policy in your organization which sets the connector’s login token expiration after a specific amount of time. Token lifetime policies have been configured on Azure Active Directory. For more information, check this Azure article or this support article.

To verify if your connections are broken:

Sign into Power Automate.
Go to Data > Connections.
Find the connection that's used in your flow.
Select Fix connections, and then update the credentials for your connection if there is a Fix connection message next to the Status column.

Verify if the flow uses a premium connector trigger

Edit your flow to find the connector name for the trigger.
Go to the list of connectors and search for that connector. If the connector is a premium connector, it shows below the name of the connector.

A standalone Power Apps or Power Automate license is required to access all premium, on-premises, and custom connectors. You can purchase new licenses at any time.

Check your license type

To view the type of license that you have:

Go to My flows in navigation tab.
Select any flow.
In the Details section, find Plan. Your current license plan is listed.

Verify if trigger check is skipped

You just completed an event (for example, added a new list item or sent an email, etc.) that should have triggered the flow, but the flow didn’t run.

Go to My flows in the navigation pane, and then select the flow. In the 28-day run history, select All runs.

If you are expecting the flow to run but it didn’t run, see if it shows the trigger check was skipped at that time. If the trigger check was skipped, the trigger condition wasn’t met for the flow to trigger. Verify the inputs and trigger conditions of the flow to see you are using the latest configuration to trigger the flow.

Verify inputs and trigger conditions

Sometimes, the inputs and trigger conditions may cause failures. Follow these steps to verfiy your inputs and conditions.

Edit the flow.
Expand the first card to see what folders, sites, mailboxes, etc. are used in the trigger.
Select the ellipses (…) on the card
Select Settings.
Find Trigger conditions.

If the field is empty, it means that there are no additional customizations and that the title of the card (in this case, when an item is created or modified) indicates when the trigger fires.

If there are additional customizations in Trigger conditions, confirm that you are using the expected/correct inputs to trigger the flow.

Check permissions

Verify that you have access to the folders, sites, or mailboxes that are used in the trigger. For example, to be able to send email from a shared inbox via Power Automate, you need permissions to send an email via the shared inbox. Test sending an email from that shared mailbox in Outlook.

Verify if admin mode is turned on

If an environment’s admin mode is turned on, all background processes, including flows will be turned off, causing the flow to not trigger.

Follow these steps to disable the admin mode.

Go to the Power Platform admin center and sign in using Environment Admin or System Administrator role credentials.
From the left-side menu, select Environments, and then select a sandbox or production environment.
On the Details page, select Edit.
Under Administration mode, toggle Disabled to Enabled.
Optionally, you can set Background operations and Custom message, and then select Save.

If everything looks good but your flow is still not triggering, verify if your flow triggers after every step.

Try these steps

Test the flow manually.
Remove, and then re-add the trigger.
Switch connection.
Turn off, and then turn on the flow.
Export, and then import the flow.
Create a copy of the flow.
If the trigger uses special conditions, like when an email arrives in specific folder, remove the folder, and then add it again.

My trigger is firing for old events

There are two types of triggers—polling triggers or Webhook triggers.

If you turned off your flow and then turned it back on, depending on your trigger type, your old triggers may be processed.

A polling trigger periodically makes a call to your service to look for new data, whereas a Webhook trigger responds to a push of new data from the service.

See the following table to understand how your flow responds when it's turned back on.

Trigger type	Description
Polling, such as the recurrence trigger	When the flow is turned on again, all unprocessed/pending events are processed. Delete, and then recreate your flow if you don't want to process pending items when you turn your flow back on.
Webhook	When the flow is turned on again, it processes new events that are generated after the flow is turned on.

To determine the type of trigger that's used in your flow:

Select the …(ellipses) for your flow, and then select Peek code.
Find the recurrence section with an interval frequency element. If this section is available, the trigger is a polling trigger.

Confirm you've set the start time to make sure it runs only at that time.

There's a delay before my trigger fires

If the trigger is a polling trigger, it wakes up periodically to check if any new events have occurred. The wake-up time depends on the license plan on which the flow runs.

For example, your flows may run every 15 minutes if you’re on the Free license plan. On the Free plan, if a cloud flow is triggered less than 15 minutes after its last run, it’s queued until 15 minutes have elapsed.

And, if your license is the Flow for Office 365 plan (from your Enterprise license E3, E5, etc.) or the Flow for Dynamics 365 plan, your flow won't run again until five minutes have elapsed. So, it may be a few minutes between the time the triggering event occurs and the time the flow begins.

To check the trigger wake up frequency:

Go to your flow trigger, and then select the …(ellipses).
Select Peek code.
Find the interval frequency.

If it is taking much longer than expected for your flow to trigger, the two likeliest reasons are:

There has been too many calls to the connector or flow, causing it to be throttled. To verify if your flow is being throttled, manually test the flow to see if it triggers immediately. If it triggers immediately, it is not throttled.

Further, you can check the Power Automate action analytics. Check out this blog to know more about action analytics.

If your flow is frequently throttled, redesign your flow to use fewer actions. Learn more about plan limits and tips to optimize flows to use fewer actions.

Additional tips:
1. Acquire a Per User or Per Flow license. After this is acquired, open and resave the flow, in order to refresh the entitlement associated with it, and to change the throttling Mode.
2. Split the flow into several instances. If the flow processes data, you can divide this data into subsets (per country, per business area, etc.).
3. After this, you can use Save As on the flow to create several instances that will process each one their own data. Since the quota is per flow, this can be used as a workaround.
There was a communication issue preventing Power Automate from reacting to trigger events. Potentially because of a service outage, policy change, password expiry, and so on, that caused the delay. You can check to find out if there are any active outages. You can also clear the cache of the browser and then retry.

Dynamics 365 connector trigger issues

There's a delay - Dynamics 365 connector triggers can take up to 2 hours to run. This connector is deprecated and our recommendation is to migrate your flows to use Microsoft Dataverse.

My flow is not listed - The Power Automate menu only lists flows that begin with the When a row is added, modified or deleted trigger and contain at least one trigger or action that references that table. Flows that contain other types of triggers (automatic, scheduled, etc.) will not be listed in Dynamics 365.

You can also access these flows in the Power Platform admin center:

Sign into Power Platform admin center.
Select Environments.
Select that environment that contains the flow.
Select Flows under the Resources section.

Important

You must enable Power Automate before you can find these flows.

Power Apps apps trigger issues

Unable to rename actions in a cloud flow – This is a known issue for flows that use Power Apps triggers. As a work around to rename actions, remove the trigger. Rename the actions and add your Power Apps trigger and configure variables wherever needed.

Once a Power Apps app is published, make copies of the flows used by the Power Apps app to make any updates. Any update to a cloud flow that's referenced by a published Power Apps app can break existing users. Do not delete or turn off existing flows until all users have been upgraded to the new published version of the Power Apps app.

SharePoint triggers, for example When a file is created or modified will not fire if a file is added/updated in a subfolder. If you need the flow to trigger on subfolders, create multiple flows.

My flow triggers multiple times

Verify that you don’t have copies of the flow active in different environments that are triggering based on same condition. Use trigger conditions to customize triggers to reduce the number of times it triggers.

You can try one of the following:

Fix/update connections.

If your flow uses a Manual trigger, it needs the connection of the user who is triggering the flow. If it uses the Recurrence trigger, it can run on the flow maker's connections.
Confirm the user has the appropriate license for the connections in the flow.

A Power Automate license is required for the user to perform any actions like save, turn off, etc. A Power Apps, Dynamics 365, or Office 365 license is not sufficient. Users with whom flows that use premium connectors are shared will each need a Power Automate Per User or Per Flow license to edit or manually trigger the flow. If the user was previously able to save/modify the flow, it's possible that their license has expired.

Alternatively, you can start a trial for the Per User plan for 90 days, after which you will need a paid plan to run/edit flows that use premium connectors. See the licensing page or this support article for more details.