Currently in preview, Microsoft have released functionality that allows Power Automate Cloud Flow run history to be stored in Microsoft Dataverse.
For every Flow that runs in Microsoft Power Automate, a log entry is created, tracking its progress. However, in order to see these entries, you traditionally had to view them from the Flow itself
While this view is useful, it can only be used to monitor a single flow – it’s not a centralised way of tracking all of your Power Automate Flows. However, now that results are stored in Dataverse, we now have one location that we can query and report upon.
How do I enable Cloud flow history in Dataverse?
By default the feature is already enabled and defaults to the same retention as Power Automate itself – 28 days. However, should you wish to shorten the retention period or disable the feature altogether, it can be done so via the Power Platform Admin Portal:
- Navigate to admin.powerplatform.com.
- Select the Environment you want to change.
- In top menu bar, click Settings.
- On the Settings page, click Product and then Features.
- Change the ‘FlowRun entity time to live‘ to suit your needs and click Save at the bottom of the screen.
What can I use the Flow Run table for?
As with many other Dataverse tables, you can query the table and use the data in a variety of ways, such as:
- A Power BI report that analyses your Flow success rate, volumes and highlights failures
- An app that enables you to browse your flow runs and jump straight to failures to diagnose issues quickly:
- Sending out custom notification emails on failures. One important thing to note when attempting this – it doesn’t appear possible to trigger events when a new Flow Run record is created, so you would have to create a scheduled Flow that looks for any new Flow Run additions that have ended in failure and loop through the records that way
What if I need more information than this table provides?
Admins can set up Application Insights to provide monitoring data from Power Automate flow executions, although this would require some additional setup and incur additional Azure costs.
Can I use this to track my Flows that are in progress?
No. An entry in the Flow Run table is only created when the flow run has ended, whether it has succeeded, failed or has been cancelled. So an in-progress flow run won’t yet have an entry in the Flow Run table – you would have to go to the Flow itself to check its progress.
Summary
It’s always good to see Microsoft providing additional tools to make the job of an admin easier, especially as an organisation creates more and more Power Automate flows. It’s worth remembering that this feature is only in preview at the moment and should not be used in a Production environment as it could be subject to change. However, as the feature is enabled by default in environments, it looks like it is here to stay. If you are an existing Strategy 365 client and want to discuss this feature, get in touch with one of our experts today.
