The sense and nonsense of the Concurrent function in Power Apps

Recently I have found many Power Apps solutions that use the Concurrent function all the time. The idea that the Concurrent function will always make things run faster is not right. Sometimes however it does make sense to use the concurrent function.

When should you use Concurrent function?

Obvious nonsense of the concurrent function

You should probably start by checking the app checker as it will report some potential issues.

When you run a Navigate in your Concurrent function  ( yes I have seen that happen!).. you will get the Use of functions that can change the screen or exit the app within the Concurrent function are not allowed warning.

Ok, that should be obvious.

Not so obvious nonsense of the concurrent function

Then there can be complexities introduced by the Concurrent function. If you set for example many variables then there is no need to use the concurrent function. I tried setting more than 1000 variables. This doesn’t take any time at all. Therefore why would you add a Concurrent function. Remember less code is better!

The sense of the concurrent function

When you do multiple data updates or when you read multiple data sources you could gain a lot of speed using the Concurrent function. If you run multiple Patch updates like the one shown below then it could make sense to use the concurrent function.

Patch(
        '[dbo].[MyDataSource]',
        {FieldID: Fields.Selected.ID},
        {
            Flag: 1,
            Comment: ChangeComment.Text,
        }
    );

You should however be careful. If you want to have control over the order of the updates then you might not want to use concurrent.

Another good reason to use concurrent is when you read data form multiple data sources.You could easily reduce the run time to about 50% of the original time. Especially when you develop solutions where performance is everything you might as well look at performance improvements in Power Apps.

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Pieter Veenstra

Is your business still running on paper trails, sprawling Excel files, or ageing Access databases? There's a better way — and I can show you exactly what it looks like. I'm the Technical Director of Vantage 365, a Microsoft solutions consultancy working with clients across the UK, the Netherlands, and worldwide. For over 30 years I've been turning messy, manual business processes into clean, automated systems that save time, reduce errors, and give teams the visibility they need to make better decisions. SharePains is not just any blog run by a Microsoft MVP. Have you ever used Try-Catch in Power Automate? The original post about Try-Catch in Power Automate can still be found on this site, https://sharepains.com/2018/02/07/try-catch-finally-in-power-automate-flow/ Or have you ever used the Pieter’s method to avoid variables and speed up your flows? https://sharepains.com/2020/03/11/pieters-method-for-advanced-in-flows/ You can contact me using contact@sharepains.com