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A flow that silently fails is worse than no flow: everyone assumes it ran. A few habits make flows dependable.
Run history
Every run is listed with Succeeded/Failed. Open a run to see each step’s inputs and outputs; the failing step is marked red with the error message. Use Resubmit after fixing.
Try / Catch with scopes
- Put the main actions inside a Scope named Try.
- Add a second Scope, Catch, and set Configure run after to “has failed” and “has timed out”.
- In Catch, email or Teams-message yourself with the flow name and run link.
💡 Retry policies (action settings) handle temporary errors like throttling. Use exponential retries on calls to busy services instead of failing at the first hiccup.
Good habits
- Rename actions: “Get open reminders”, not “List rows present in a table 2”.
- Add a co-owner (or use a shared service account) so flows survive people leaving.
- Add a note in the flow’s description: purpose, owner, what to do if it fails.
- Use environment variables or a settings list for email addresses and folders instead of hard-coding.
Where people go wrong
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Flow owned by someone who left | Co-owners from day one |
| Failure unnoticed for weeks | Catch scope with alerts |
That’s the Power Automate course.
Practice
Add Try/Catch scopes and a failure alert to one of your earlier flows.
📎 Practice files for this article
- 📄Lesson 8 step-by-step guidePrintable steps to build the flow.⬇ TXT · 364 B
Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.
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