Monitoring failed workflows - Rishan Solutions

Monitoring failed workflows in Power Pages (formerly Power Apps Portals) is essential for maintaining the health, reliability, and performance of your business logic. Whether you’re using Power Automate flows, classic workflows, or custom plugins, identifying and resolving failures promptly ensures smooth user experiences and business continuity.

This step-by-step guide explains how to monitor, troubleshoot, and resolve failed workflows, covering native tools, best practices, and alerting options.

1. Understanding Workflow Failures

In Power Pages, workflows are typically triggered by user interactions on forms (e.g., submitting a case, booking an appointment, or updating a profile). When these workflows fail, users may face delays, data inconsistencies, or blocked operations.

Common causes of workflow failure:

Missing data or null references
Permission or security role mismatches
API timeouts or throttling
Logic errors in Power Automate flows
Plugin exceptions

2. Types of Workflows in Power Platform

You might encounter and need to monitor:

Power Automate flows (modern, cloud-based automation)
Classic workflows (legacy Dataverse-based workflows)
Plugins or custom workflow activities (written in C# using the Dataverse SDK)

Each type has a different way of logging and reporting failures.

3. Monitoring Power Automate Flow Failures

Step 1: Navigate to Power Automate Portal

Go to Power Automate and select My Flows or Team Flows, depending on ownership.

Step 2: Review Run History

Click on the specific flow.
Open the Run History section.
Failed runs are marked in red with an error icon.

Click any failed run to:

View input/output of each step.
Identify the step that failed.
Read the detailed error message.

Step 3: Enable Notifications

Open the flow settings.
Turn on Failure Alerts by setting up notifications via email or Teams.
Alternatively, create a monitoring flow that tracks failures and sends alerts using the Power Platform Admin connectors.

4. Monitoring Classic Workflows

Step 1: Use the Power Platform Admin Center

Go to admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com.
Choose your environment.
Navigate to Dataverse > System Jobs.

Step 2: Filter System Jobs

Filter by status: Failed
Filter by type: Workflow

You’ll see entries with details such as:

Owner
Primary record
Error message

Step 3: Open the Failed Job

Click to view the exact error message, timestamps, and stack trace (if applicable). This will help you identify:

Which record caused the failure
Which step or condition failed

5. Monitoring Plugin Failures (Custom Code)

Step 1: Use Dataverse Plug-in Trace Logs

In Power Apps, navigate to your environment.
Go to Advanced Settings > Customizations > Plug-in Trace Logs.
Enable All Exceptions in system settings to capture plugin errors.

You can view:

Stack traces
Input parameters
Execution context

This is critical for developers debugging plugin-based logic triggered from portal actions.

6. Using Application Insights for Monitoring

If you’ve integrated Application Insights (especially for complex portals), you can monitor:

Workflow execution time
Failure patterns
Exception stack traces
Custom telemetry from plugins or flows

Setup:

Connect your portal to Azure Application Insights via Web Templates or Site Settings.
Log custom telemetry in workflows using custom connectors or Azure Functions.

7. Proactive Monitoring via Power Platform Tools

Power Platform Center of Excellence (CoE) Toolkit

The CoE toolkit includes dashboards and flows that:

Track flow usage
Alert on flow failures
Visualize problematic trends

Use Admin Connectors in a Custom Flow

You can create a flow using Power Platform Admin connectors to:

Query recent failures (e.g., every 15 minutes)
Send notifications via Email or Teams
Log failures in SharePoint, Excel, or Dataverse

8. Debugging Tips

Check for null or missing values in triggers (use condition checks to prevent failures).
Validate user permissions (ensure users triggering the workflow have the necessary access).
Use Try-Catch style scopes in Power Automate for better error handling.
Implement retries and timeouts in HTTP or Dataverse actions.
Break complex flows into smaller, manageable parts to isolate failure points.

9. Best Practices

Always enable error handling in Power Automate (using Configure Run After).
Log every failure with context (record ID, timestamp, user info).
Document dependencies and logic behind each workflow.
Limit workflow depth to reduce complexity and improve maintainability.
Version control flows and workflows with descriptions and change history.