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Managing and monitoring Power Automate flows

Once you’ve built Power Automate flows, especially those integrated with your critical Tallyfy processes, effective management and monitoring become essential. This guide helps you manage these flows, including collaboration, backups, migrations between environments, and troubleshooting common issues when connecting with Tallyfy.

Sharing and collaborating on flows

Automating parts of your Tallyfy processes often involves teamwork. Power Automate offers features to share flows, which can support collaboration and maintain continuity for your Tallyfy automations.

  • Why share flows?

    • Team collaboration: Multiple team members can contribute to building and refining a flow that supports a Tallyfy process.
    • Business continuity: If the original owner of a flow leaves the organization or changes roles, shared owners can take over management. This prevents disruptions to your Tallyfy automations.

  • Adding co-owners:

    • You can add other users or Microsoft 365 groups as co-owners of a cloud flow.
    • Co-owners generally have full permissions to edit the flow, view its run history, and manage its connections (like the Tallyfy connector) for that specific flow. They can also add or remove other owners.
    • To add a co-owner: Navigate to My flows in Power Automate, select the flow, and click Share. Enter the name or email of the user/group.
    • Connection sharing: When you share a flow, the connections it uses (e.g., to Tallyfy, Outlook, SharePoint) are also made available to co-owners for that specific flow only. They cannot use these shared connections in their other personal flows.

  • Run-only users (for manually triggered flows):

    • For instant (button) flows, which can be triggered manually, you can grant run-only permissions.
    • Users with run-only access can trigger and run the flow (e.g., a button flow that launches a Tallyfy process) but cannot view or edit its design.
    • This is useful for deploying standardized actions for a team using Tallyfy without exposing the underlying automation logic.
    • To set run-only permissions: Go to the flow’s details page, and in the Run only users section, click Edit.

  • Sharing desktop flows: Desktop flows, used for RPA, can also be shared, allowing other users to run or co-own them, depending on the permissions granted. The sharing mechanism is similar, typically managed from the Power Automate web portal.

Exporting and importing flows

Exporting and importing flows are necessary administrative tasks for backups, migrations, and sharing packaged automation solutions that interact with Tallyfy.

  • Why export/import?

    • Backup and recovery: Regularly export important flows (especially complex Tallyfy integrations) as a backup measure.
    • Environment migration: Move flows from a development or test environment to a production environment.
    • Sharing solutions: Package a flow (and its dependencies like connection references) to share with other Tallyfy users in your organization.

  • Exporting a flow:

    1. Go to My flows in Power Automate, find the flow you want to export.

    2. Click the ellipsis (…) and select Export > Package (.zip).

    3. On the “Export package” screen, provide a Name and Description for the package.

    4. Under “Review Package Content,” for each resource (like the flow itself or connections), you can set the Import setup (e.g., “Update” an existing one or “Create as new” on import).

    5. Click Export. The package will be downloaded as a .zip file.

  • Importing a flow:

    1. Go to My flows and click Import.

    2. Upload the .zip package file.

    3. During import, you’ll be prompted to configure the resources:

      • For the flow itself: Choose to Create as new or Update an existing flow.
      • For connections (e.g., to Tallyfy using the Tallyfy connector, SharePoint): Select an existing connection in the target environment or create a new one by authenticating.

    4. Once all resources are configured (green checkmarks), click Import.

Monitoring flow run history

Keeping an eye on how your Power Automate flows are running is vital for ensuring your Tallyfy automations are performing as expected. You can access this information through the Power Automate interface basics.

  • Accessing run history:
    • From the My flows list, click on the name of a flow to go to its details page. The run history is displayed here.
    • Alternatively, click the ellipsis (…) next to a flow and select Run history.
  • Understanding the run history: The list shows each time the flow was triggered, with:
    • Start time
    • Duration
    • Status: Succeeded, Failed, Cancelled, or Running.
  • Drilling into a Specific Run: Click on a specific run (by its start time) to see the detailed execution of each trigger and action.
    • You can expand each step to view its Inputs and Outputs.
    • This is invaluable for debugging. For Tallyfy integrations, you can see exactly what data was received from a Tallyfy trigger, what data was passed to a Tallyfy action (like “Create task” or “Update task” via the Tallyfy connector), and what response Tallyfy sent back.
  • Resubmitting failed flows: If a flow failed due to a temporary issue (e.g., a connected service was momentarily unavailable), you can often resubmit the failed run directly from its history page using the same trigger data.

Basic troubleshooting

When your Tallyfy-integrated flows don’t work as expected, here are some initial troubleshooting steps. Understanding Power Automate basics can also be helpful here.

  • Flow checker: Before you even run a flow, use the Flow checker (usually a stethoscope icon in the flow designer within Power Automate). It analyzes your flow for potential errors and warnings.

  • Common error types & solutions:

    • Authentication errors: Often indicated by “Unauthorized” messages or HTTP 401/403 errors. This means the credentials for a connector (e.g., your Tallyfy connection via the Tallyfy connector, Outlook, SharePoint) are invalid or have expired.
      • Solution: Edit the flow, find the problematic connection in the failing step or on the flow’s details page, and update or re-authenticate it.
    • Action configuration errors: A required field in an action might be missing, or data might be in an incorrect format.
      • Solution: Review the inputs of the failed action in the run history. Check that all required fields are populated and that data types match what the action expects (e.g., providing a number where text is needed). Refer to documentation on working with data operations and variables if complex data manipulation is involved.
    • Logic errors: The flow runs successfully but doesn’t produce the desired outcome for your Tallyfy process. This often means an issue with your conditions or expressions. Understanding conditional logic and advanced expressions in Power Automate can help here.
      • Solution: Carefully review your conditional logic. Use the “Compose” action to output intermediate values of dynamic content or expressions to see what they evaluate to during a run.
    • API limits/throttling: If a flow makes too many calls to a service (including Tallyfy via its connector or direct API calls) in a short period, the service might temporarily block further requests (throttling).
      • Solution: Optimize your flow to reduce calls. Add delays if appropriate. Check the service’s API documentation for rate limits.

  • Interpreting error messages: The error details in the flow run history for a failed step usually provide specific messages. Read these carefully as they often point directly to the cause.

  • Using “Peek code” and “Compose”:

    • Peek code: For any action, you can click the ellipsis (…) and select Peek code to see the underlying JSON definition. This can sometimes help understand how data is structured for services like Tallyfy.
    • Compose action (Data Operation): This is a very useful debugging tool. Add a Compose action (covered in working with data operations and variables) and set its input to any dynamic content or expression whose value you want to inspect. When the flow runs, the output of the Compose action will show you the evaluated result.

Best practices for managing Tallyfy-Power Automate flows

  • Clear naming: Use descriptive names for your flows, triggers, and actions. This makes them much easier to understand and maintain, especially when you have many Tallyfy-related automations.
  • Regular review: Periodically review the run history of important flows, particularly those that automate critical steps in your Tallyfy processes.
  • Documentation: For complex flows, especially those with intricate conditional logic or expressions connecting to Tallyfy, maintain separate documentation explaining how they work.
  • Connection security: Manage your connections, such as the Tallyfy connector, securely. For flows that aren’t tied to a specific user, consider using service accounts if your organization’s policies and the connector support it. Be mindful of the permissions granted to these accounts.
  • Failover planning: For mission-critical Tallyfy integrations handled by Power Automate, think about what happens if the flow fails. Do you have alerts in place? Is there a manual workaround process?

By actively managing and monitoring your flows, you can ensure your Tallyfy automations remain reliable and continue to support your business operations.

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