Power Automate Child Flow using Solution Packages

Learn to call one power automate flow from another flow aka child flows. This all can be done with a standard license and the action Run a child flow as long as you build it all inside of a Solution. Pretty cool stuff.

0:00 Power Automate Child Flows
1:54 Building you Power Automate flow in a Solution package and an overview of Power Platform Solutions
3:43 Adding a new automation cloud flow to a solution aka our child flow
7:57 Creating the Parent flow in your solution
10:08 Using the split expression to turn dynamic content string and turn it into a table to use with apply to each
10:42 Adding the Run a child flow action
13:12 Configure the run only users connection of the child flow. This is required.
16:37 Testing our flow and explaining that the apply to each runs one at a time, serial
18:12 Adjusting the child flow to get them to run sequentially by moving the Respond to PowerApp or flow action

[AdamHaas]

The biggest issues I had researching this, you answered for me.

10:40 "Now what's important to understand is this "Run child flow". This doesn't show up unless you are in a solution."

1:54 "And so what we need to do in order take advantage of these Child Flows is you have to build inside a Solution. [...] The idea of solutions is that they are like these little packages, little compartmentalized functionality."

4:00 "Your child is going to be an instant flow and we have to choose manual trigger flow."

4:35 "Also keep in mind as you're building child flows and parent flows, they both have to be in the same solution."

[CigarDoug]

One day, I will learn that before trying ANYTHING new in Power Apps or Power Automate, I will look for a video from you Shane, and watch it first. You answered all my questions about Child Flows and why they weren't working. Thank you for the service you provide to us other geeks.

[KBaluPbn]

Thanks Shane, I keep on seeing your videos. Sometimes i get the answer and Sometimes I get stuck. However, your videos gives me right direction and approach. Thanks for efforts, suggestions and teachings.

[adamdavid]

Thanks so much! I would love to see a video that goes into more detail about solutions

[nilskirsch]

Shane it's incredible how much I already learned from your videos and it's always fun to watch too. We can be glad that you are sharing so much content with the community. Big thanks!

[OleBergtun]

thx Shane... That short, but pointed out - that those 3 items needed to be done before you create the parent saved me - this was actually the only place where i found this documented...

[televisi]

Thank you for the video explanations and the tips in having the respond at the beginning of the 'child flow'

[douglasbrito]

Thanks for this great content, all tricks we're covered. Cheers

[dougydoe]

Another great video. I picked up a few pointers for future use. Thanks for sharing, Shane

[hmvelloso]

Great video as always, Shane.

You are my top of mind Power Platform YouTube channel when someone asks me for a place where he/she can learn more about these Microsoft tools.

Thanks

[suryaraochowdarykoduri]

Thank you so much for this video. I got to this video after a year from its publish date. I got here...

[pt]

OMG! you have just saved my day with that trick. I was thinking that the respond step would exit the child flow. I am delightfully surprised of this behaviour.

[vishalsambhare]

Thank you. This helped build the solution I was looking for.

[StephanOnisick]

Another great video! I cheated however by watching the video and avoiding the mistakes. Ran like a Champ!

[minnies]

Hi Shane I really like the trick to put the response to the beginning. I hope I will remember in the future when I need it ;-)

[oluwatobiyusuf]

Thanks for this knowledge shared. New knowledge gained

[chrismichels]

hello Shane, I really like your youtube videos and they are very helpful in coming up with solutions with PowerApps. when building I keep noticing that the font, and default settings for height and width of the fields don't match what I want, so in many places this means adjusting these settings. Is there a more convenient way to do this? Could you make a video about that too? thanks in advance!

[dominicgraytechnology]

For flows you'd like to break up as they would be beneficial across multiple "solutions", what would the best strategy be for those?

[tahasair]

thanks for the info i was struggling with the connection error now its ok after i did the third action

[DreamTeamDataproduct]

Hi Shane. Great video and actually to the point of my problem. I was asked to create (at first) a power automate that read an excel sheet (up to 10000 rows) which has an email column (actually a line of display names needed to be converted to real email address). Using the List rows present in a table action I though I could benefit using child flow to send out email for each row from the parent flow taking advantage of the parallelism. That was a nice idea. But one issue came up, sending these emails must be able to send from a distribution group in the send as field in the Send Email v2 action saying sending on behalf of the person that runs the flow. As you said, that would be the connection owner in the flow. Then somebody told me that I could overcome this by using a power app that calls the parent automate flow. That would solve this. I guess you are familiar with this though. I tried it and it worked on the parent flow, but not in the child flow where the emails are being sent. Do you have a suggestion how I can solve this so the mail saying: <email of runner> on behalf of <distribution group>. By now I am always the sender on behalf of, even though other is actually running the power app calling the parent flow which runs all child flows.

And a second question, in your video where you show how to open and select an excel file, can I create a collection directly in power app or do I need to use a power automate flow and get back a json array or something?

Again thanks for you videos I learn a lot from you

Regards Geir