How to Call a Child flow from the Parent flow – Part One

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

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.

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.

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.

Get multiple List Items and send merged response to Power Apps through MS Flow

Introduction:

In this article, we will walkthrough on how to get items from multiple SharePoint Lists having the same list structure schema, combine the list items and send merged list items response to the Power Apps.

Real-Life Use-case and Scenario:

We have come across a scenario wherein we have one master list having the name of all child lists from where we need to fetch the data. Let’s say for an example –

We have a master list named “ABC MasterList”. The column called “ListNames” from the list has the information of the all child lists. Please see the below screen.

Now, we need to loop through on column – “ListNames” and find out the items from those lists. Let’s say in “ListNames” column if there are 2 lists name, then this will loop through those two lists, get all items from those lists and send the response back to the Power Apps. So, now let’s get started!!

Step 1: Create Flow with trigger action of Power Apps.  In the end, the flow will look like the below screen.

We need to initialize one variable in which we collect all the list items and send this variable to Power Apps response. We need to create one string variable “Items” as shown in the below image.

Step 2: Add an action called – “Get items from SharePoint list” to get all list names from the master list.

Step 3: Make an Http request to fetch the items from each list fetched from Step 2. Below is the overall looping step.

Now, let’s see each component.

Step 3.1: Click on the “Add an action” button.

Search “select”  in the search box and select the “Select” from Actions as shown in the below image.





Select the column which you want to send to the response.

Step 3.2: Click on the “Add an action” as shown in step 3.1. Select the “Join” from Actions as shown in the below image.

Join the output of “Select” with “\n” for separation.

Step 3.3: Append the “Output” to the string “Items”.

Step 4: Now, let’s send the response back to the Power Apps. Add Response Variable with the value assigned to it. And then send the above string variable to Power Apps response.

Now, let’s run and test the flow. Below is the test result.

Also, this is the value for the final variable which is returning to the Power Apps.

Conclusion:

This is how we can fetch the data from the multiple lists having the same schema and send the final response back to the Power Apps.

If you have any questions you can reach out to our SharePoint Consulting team here.

Create Dual Y-Axis Line Chart in Power BI

Overview:

In this blog, we will learn how we can create a Native Line chart with dual Y-Axis in Power BI. Sometimes, there are situations where we need to represent two Y-axis in the line chart. Earlier Dual Y-Axis feature was not available in Power BI but it got released with March 2020 - Power BI Updates.

Example:

We want to represent Actual and Budget Sales with the # of units sold in the line chart. We need to represent this with two Y-Axis.

• One which represents Sales Data
• The second which represents # of Units

Now, let’s get started!

Step 1: Add a Line chart from the visualization pane.

Step 2: If you carefully observe, we can see the Y2 Axis in the format section.

Drag Sales fields to Values section and Units to Y2 Axis.

Step 3: The Dual Y-Axis line chart will look like this.

Also, we can format the Y2 Axis using the following option.

Conclusion:

This is how we can easily create Dual Y-Axis line chart in Power BI. Happy Reporting!

If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.