Introduction
In this blog, we will learn, how we can trigger a child flow from parent flow and send the response back to parent flow using Microsoft Power Automate. Sometimes, there are situations when we need to call child flow from parent flow to reduce repetitive flow actions.
We have divided this article in two parts.
- Part One – Create a Flow solution and Parent flow.
- Part Two – Create a Child Flow.
Lets have a look at real-life Use Case:
We have two different lists created in SharePoint Online.
1. All Employee Info List: This list holds all employee information.
2. Pay Rate List: This list holds experience and the pay scale information.
Now, as an end result, we need to calculate the total pay scale based on experience and salary and store the value to SharePoint list. We wish to reuse this calculation in multiple flows.
Overall Architecture/Schema of Lists:
Below is the column structure of the All Employee Info List.
And below is the column structure of the Pay Rate List.
Below is a sample data to calculate Pay Scale Amount.
So, now let's get started. As a first step to implement this Parent-Child flow, we need to create a solution in Flow first.
Create a Solution in Power Automate/MS Flow:
Click on Solutions in the left navigation and click on New Solution. It will ask the following information to fill out.
Display Name = Any meaningful name for your solution.
Name = This will be generated automatically once you fill-in the Display name.
Publisher = Select CDS
Version = 1.0.0.0
Creating a Parent flow:
From the solution, click on New and select Flow.
This will redirect to you to the new flow creation screen. Below is the overall structure of the flow which we are going to create.
Now, let’s check each action in detail.
Step 1: Add a trigger – "When an item is created or modified".
Step 2: We have used a trigger, whenever an item is created or modified here and we are calling child flow to get calculated value and updating the item again so the flow will go in infinite condition. To overcome that we are maintaining the flag. If trigger value is "Yes" then it will continue running the process otherwise it will terminate the current flow.
Step 3: Now, let’s get data from other SharePoint list and based on experience, get the value of Pay rate.
Step 4: In this action select child flow name and pass parameter to use in child flow. Here, we need to create a child flow separately in the same solution. Please go through "Create Child Flow Article" blog for the steps to create a child flow separately. Once you create a child flow, add an action – "Run a child flow".
This will ask for the following parameters which we have defined for our child flow.
Step 5: Set compose action to get the response from a child flow.
So, our parent flow has been created successfully, let’s verify the result.
Add a new item to the All Employee Info SharePoint list. This will add Pay Scale Result from child flow and update the value.
In this blog, we will learn, how we can trigger a child flow from parent flow and send the response back to parent flow using Microsoft Power Automate. Sometimes, there are situations when we need to call child flow from parent flow to reduce repetitive flow actions.
We have divided this article in two parts.
- Part One – Create a Flow solution and Parent flow.
- Part Two – Create a Child Flow.
Lets have a look at real-life Use Case:
We have two different lists created in SharePoint Online.
1. All Employee Info List: This list holds all employee information.
2. Pay Rate List: This list holds experience and the pay scale information.
Now, as an end result, we need to calculate the total pay scale based on experience and salary and store the value to SharePoint list. We wish to reuse this calculation in multiple flows.
Overall Architecture/Schema of Lists:
Below is the column structure of the All Employee Info List.
And below is the column structure of the Pay Rate List.
Below is a sample data to calculate Pay Scale Amount.
Create a Solution in Power Automate/MS Flow:
Click on Solutions in the left navigation and click on New Solution. It will ask the following information to fill out.
Display Name = Any meaningful name for your solution.
Name = This will be generated automatically once you fill-in the Display name.
Publisher = Select CDS
Version = 1.0.0.0
Once the solution is created, create a flow inside that solution. So, now let’s see how to create a flow inside that solution.
Creating a Parent flow:
From the solution, click on New and select Flow.
This will redirect to you to the new flow creation screen. Below is the overall structure of the flow which we are going to create.
Step 1: Add a trigger – "When an item is created or modified".
Step 2: We have used a trigger, whenever an item is created or modified here and we are calling child flow to get calculated value and updating the item again so the flow will go in infinite condition. To overcome that we are maintaining the flag. If trigger value is "Yes" then it will continue running the process otherwise it will terminate the current flow.
Step 3: Now, let’s get data from other SharePoint list and based on experience, get the value of Pay rate.
Step 4: In this action select child flow name and pass parameter to use in child flow. Here, we need to create a child flow separately in the same solution. Please go through "Create Child Flow Article" blog for the steps to create a child flow separately. Once you create a child flow, add an action – "Run a child flow".
This will ask for the following parameters which we have defined for our child flow.
Step 5: Set compose action to get the response from a child flow.
So, our parent flow has been created successfully, let’s verify the result.
Conclusion:
This is how, we can create a Parent flow and call a child flow with the help of "Run a Child Flow" action in Power Automate.
If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.
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