Microsoft Flow – Error Handling for small flows

In my series of error handling posts I’ve looked at

• Common Error Message in the SharePoint Connector
• Handle trigger failures
• Finding failed flow actions – Part 2
• Finding failed flow actions – Part 1
• Advanced Error Handling
• Throws in flows
• Try / Catch

In this post I’m going to have a look at error handling in small flows. Huh, is that any different?

Not, really but when you have small flows with some action that could fail then you could consider a flow structure like this:

When an action fails you will see the flow going into the failed section of your flow.

And when an action is successful the flow will continue in the Success branch.

All of this can be done with parallel actions.  You will find however that adding 4 branches after every action is less practical than the try / catch approach but for smaller flows this could be a good pattern to follow. Potentially you could even simplify the pattern by merging the Failed, Skipped and Timeout into one branch. That way there is a did run  and a did not run branch. And having two branches after each potentially failing action you might find that this pattern becomes more manageable.