Power Apps  

🧠 Have You Ever Tried Responding to Power Apps Multiple Times in a Flow?

If you’ve worked with Power Apps and Power Automate, you might have faced this situation:

“Can I send multiple responses back to Power Apps from a single flow to show progress?”

It sounds logical—especially when your process has multiple steps like:

  • Uploading

  • Processing

  • Validating

  • Completing

You may expect to update the app at each stage.

Why This Approach Fails

In Power Automate, the “Respond to Power Apps” action can only be used once per flow execution.

This means:

  • You cannot send intermediate updates

  • You cannot push multiple responses back to the app

  • Only the final output is returned

So, if you try to design a flow that responds multiple times, it simply won’t work as expected.

A Better Approach: Show Progress Without Multiple Responses

Instead of trying to respond multiple times, you can design a smarter solution using:

Key Requirements:

  • A data source (SharePoint / Dataverse)

  • A Timer control in Power Apps

  • A flow that executes your process.

Simple Scenario: File Processing Tracker

Imagine a user uploads a file from Power Apps.

The backend flow performs:

  1. Uploading

  2. Processing

  3. Validation

  4. Completion

Now, instead of sending responses at each step, the flow updates a status field in a data source.

How It Works

Step 1: Built a Flow that Updates Status in SharePoint

At each stage, update the same record by using the GUID passed from Power Apps during the flow execution. This GUID acts as a unique Process ID, allowing the flow to identify and update the correct record in SharePoint at every step.

For example, as the process progresses, update the Status field like:

  • Status = “Uploading” or “20% Completed” (initial stage)

  • Status = “Processing” or “45% Completed”

  • Status = “Validating” or “80% Completed”

  • Status = “Completed” or “100% Completed” (final stage)

This approach allows the SharePoint list to act as a progress tracker, storing real-time updates that can be fetched and displayed in Power Apps.

Screenshot 2026-04-08 165205

  • The Create Item action is used to create a new record in SharePoint and store the Process ID (GUID).

  • The Update Item action is then used at each stage of the flow to update the progress value in the same record.

Screenshot 2026-04-08 171144

  • Instead of using a delay, the flow can perform actual processing steps such as uploading, processing, or validating data, with the status being updated at each stage.

Step 2: Add following in your power apps

Step 1: Trigger Flow from Power Apps

On button OnSelect, initialize variables and call the flow:

Set(varStartTimer, true);
Set(varGUID, GUID());
TestPOC_MultipleRespondToPowerApps.Run(varGUID);

This:

  • Starts the timer

  • Generates a unique Process ID (GUID)

  • Passes it to the flow to track progress

Step 2: Configure Timer Control

  • Duration: 2000–3000 ms

  • Start: varStartTimer

  • Repeat: true

Timer will keep running and checking progress at intervals.

Step 3: Fetch Progress on Timer Start

Add this logic in OnTimerStart:

Refresh(POC_MultipleTimePowerAutomateResponse);

Set(
    varRecord,
    LookUp(
        POC_MultipleTimePowerAutomateResponse,
        ProcessID = Text(varGUID)
    )
);

Set(
    varProgress,
    varRecord.Progress
);

This:

  • Refreshes data from SharePoint

  • Finds the record using GUID

  • Stores the latest progress value

Step 4: Stop Timer When Process Completes

Add this logic in OnTimerEnd:

If(
    varProgress = "100% complete",
    Set(varStartTimer, false);
    Set(varProgress, Blank())
)

This:

  • Stops the timer when process is complete

  • Clears progress variable

Step 5: Display Progress to User

Bind a Label Text property to:

varProgress

This will show live updates like:

  • 20% complete

  • 45% complete

  • 80% complete

  • 100% complete

Result

Even though the flow responds only once:

  • Users see live progress updates

  • The app feels interactive and real-time

  • No limitation is exposed to the user

Key Takeaway

You cannot respond to Power Apps multiple times within a single flow—but you can simulate real-time updates by using a data source and polling it from Power Apps.

Conclusion

Next timewhenever you think:

“I need multiple responses from my flow…”

Pause and rethink.

Instead, let your data source act as the communication bridge, and use Power Apps logic to bring that data to life.

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