Power Platform : Power Automate – Exploring Do until control – Demo

Hi All,

Greetings for the day !!!

Today new small learning.

Background / Use Case:

• We have SharePoint list having following columns
  • “Reviewer” of type “Person and Group” and Person only – default value is empty / null
  • “Approval Status” of type “Choice” with following choices
    • Submitted – default option
    • Under Review – Once reviewer assigned in “Reviewer” column status should be updated to this value
    • Approved
    • Rejected
• As user submit the request – email sent to group of reviewers and any once reviewer assign an item to self by updating “Reviewer” column
• We need to wait till “Reviewer” is assigned and send reminder to reviewer on a frequency of every day
• Once “Reviewer” is assigned we need to send an email and change the choice in “Approval Status” column from “Submitted” to “Under Review“
• So in this case we need to wait till the reviewer is assigned and here – Do until condition control comes into the picture

Details :

• What is Do until control in Power Automate
  • Condition action – condition control
  • In our Power Automate some time we need to repeat certain steps until specified / given condition is satisfied. To have such feature we have Do until control in Power Automate

• We could add the actions under “Do until” control which we want to repeat
• Do until limits
  • There are two parameters of Limits
  • Count :
    • These many times actions under “Do until” will get executed
    • Loop will executed these many number of times
    • So either condition will evaluated true or count limit will satisfied (count number will reach). In either case “Do until” will exit
    • Default value for count is 60
    • We can extend count limit till 5000
  • Timeout
    • Default Timeout is “PT1H” – 1 Hour
    • Here,
      • P – Period
      • T – Time unit
      • H – Hour
    • This means flow will stop after the 1 hour or condition will met or count number is reached
    • Examples –
      • P4D – 4 days
      • PT9H – 9 Hours
      • P9DT9H9M – 9 days 9 Hours 9 Minutes
      • P2M – 1 month
      • PT2M – 2 minute
    • Maximum duration or timeout for the loop is 30 days

Demo :

• Lets demonstrate our use case
• Prerequisites:
  • SharePoint list – following is the list created

• Create a new flow – Automated cloud flow

• We will trigger a flow when new item will be created in SharePoint list
• Flow name – Demo-Dountil

• Enter the details
  • Site Address
  • List Name

• Initialize the variable – reviewerEmail
• We will initialize the variable with list field – “Reviewer Email”

• Next step is adding – Do until control condition
• Actions in our Do until control will be executed until the reviewer get assigned
• So we have condition like – reviewerEmail is empty
• We are using “Delay” action to verify again on next day
• We are again reading SharePoint item and updating our variable – “reviewerEmail”
• Once “Reviewer” is assigned – this means “Reviewer” field have value “Do until” control will exit

Thanks for reading !!! Please feel free to discuss / suggestions / share thoughts !!!

HAVE A GREAT TIME AHEAD !!! LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL 🙂