You can create a nested flow in Power Automate by using the "Apply to each" action. This action allows you to iterate over a collection of items, such as a list of emails or a table of data. Within the "Apply to each" loop, you can add other actions, including another "Apply to each" action, which creates the nested flow.
Here's a breakdown of how to create a nested flow:
Step 1: Create the Main Flow
- Start by creating a new flow in Power Automate.
- Add an action that retrieves the data you want to iterate over. This could be a "Get items" action for SharePoint lists, a "List rows present in a table" action for Dataverse, or any other action that returns a collection of data.
Step 2: Create the "Apply to each" Action
- Add an "Apply to each" action after the data retrieval action.
- Select the output from the previous action as the "Value" for the "Apply to each" action. This tells Power Automate to iterate over each item in the collection.
Step 3: Create the Nested Flow
- Within the "Apply to each" loop, add another "Apply to each" action. This will create the nested flow.
- Select the appropriate output from the previous action as the "Value" for the nested "Apply to each" action. For example, if you're iterating over a list of emails, and each email has a list of attachments, you would select the "Attachments" output as the value for the nested loop.
- Add the desired actions within the nested "Apply to each" loop. These actions will be executed for each item in the nested collection.
Example: Processing Nested Data
Let's say you have a list of orders in SharePoint, and each order has a list of items. You want to process each order and its items separately.
- Create a flow that uses the "Get items" action to retrieve the list of orders from SharePoint.
- Add an "Apply to each" action to iterate over each order.
- Within the first "Apply to each" loop, add another "Apply to each" action to iterate over the items within each order.
- Add actions within the nested loop to process each item, such as sending an email or updating a database record.
Practical Insights:
- Nested flows are useful for working with complex data structures that have multiple levels of information.
- You can use nested flows to perform repetitive tasks on different levels of data.
- Power Automate provides various actions that can be used within nested flows, allowing you to customize the flow based on your specific needs.
