Power Automate Throttling Failures & Solutions

Understanding Power Automate Throttling

Power Automate imposes limits on API calls to SharePoint and other connectors. Flows may fail when:

• Working with large lists or libraries
• Running many actions in parallel
• Exceeding connector-specific request limits

Common Symptoms

• Flow run failures with HTTP 429 or 503 errors
• Delayed execution of actions
• Partial updates in SharePoint lists or libraries

Best Practices to Prevent Throttling

1. Use batch operations and loops efficiently
2. Implement retry policies with exponential backoff
3. Filter data at the source using OData queries
4. Split large flows into smaller, modular flows
5. Monitor flows with logging and alerting

Alternative Approaches

For extremely large datasets, consider hybrid architectures:

• Move structured data to SQL or Dataverse
• Keep SharePoint as a metadata or document store
• Use Power Automate to orchestrate, not transform massive datasets

Conclusion

By understanding throttling limits and applying best practices, you can keep your Power Automate flows reliable and your SharePoint environment performant.

High-Level Enterprise SharePoint Architecture