One of the great new features added to Flow has been copy and paste. Very often it really helps when you’ve got a complicated action that you want to use multiple times. There are however a few issues with this new feature but then we shouldn’t forget that this is still in Preview. In this post I will give you some of my findings.
Failed to find 84A5DBF7-CCF4-4F30-B188-659C3D3489E1 in definition.
When you try to copy actions from one branch of a switch into another branch then you might get the Failed to find … in definition error.
Failed to find SWITCH”CASE_2 in definition.
When you copy the action above the switch it will work. If you no were to copy the action to your clipboard again and then add it to the 2nd branch in your switch you will find the Failed to find SWITCH”CASE_2 in definition error.
This however is part of the solution that worked for me. Rather than copying Compose 2 it is now possible to drag Compose 2 into the second branch of my switch.
Time to take this a step further. I added a Compose 3 in my 1st branch. and then copied it above my Switch. My Compose 3 action is set to the output form the first Compose. I would have expected this to fail.
As you can see below my compose 4 is now using the output from an action that appears later in my flow.
When you try to save the above flow you will find:
The template validation failed
The template validation failed: ‘The inputs of template action ‘Compose_4’ at line ‘1 and column ‘1883’ cannot reference action ‘Compose’. Action ‘Compose’ must either be in ‘runAfter’ path or within a scope action on the ‘runAfter’ path of action ‘Compose_4′, or be a Trigger.’.
This is actually quite good, as you now have the chance to correct the flow and still take advantage of the copy/paste feature.
Pieter,
The “paste above switch then drag&drop” was a lifesaver! Thanks!