Power Automate: Approval flow with Multiple Attachments and Common Errors

Requirement

Get Multiple Attachment files from SharePoint List and send an approval request using Power Automate.

Actions in Flow

1. When an item is created
   • Site Address = your SharePoint site
   • List Name = the lists where it is requested
2. Initialize an array variable
   • Next is to initialize a variable with the type ‘Array’
3. Get attachments
   • Site Address = same with action 1 SharePoint site
   • List Name = lists selected from action 1
   • *Id = ID from the ‘When an item is created‘ action
4. Get attachment content
   • Site Address = same with action 1 SharePoint site
   • List Name = lists selected from action 1
   • *Id = ID from the ‘When an item is created‘ action
   • *File Identifier = Id from the ‘Get Attachments‘ action
5. Append to array variable
   • Name = variable that you’ve initialized in action 2
   • Value = Name is the DisplayName of from the ‘Get Attachments‘ action then the Content is the Attachment Content from the ‘Get attachment content‘ action
6. Start and wait for an approval
   • Expand the ‘Show advanced aptions‘ and then select the icon in the left side of the Attachment. [Switch to input entire array]
   • Attachment = insert the variable from the ‘Append to array variable‘ value

Get Multiple Attachment Flow

{
"Name": @{items('Apply_to_each')?['DisplayName']},
"ContentBytes": body('Get_attachment_content').$content
}

Updated: Change the “Content” to “ContentBytes”

Common Approval Error

Common issues that you may encounter during the approval. These are the errors that I’ve encountered while building the flow.

‘CdsApiAttachmentSizeLimitExceeded’ means that the attached file exceeded the approval email. The default size is 5MB in CDS.

To check and increase the email attachment settings of your Power Platform Environment:

• In the Power Platform Admin Center, select the environment
• Then select Settings >> Expand the Email, then select Email Settings
• Under the Attachments, you will see the size in kb. The maximum file size that you can configure is 131072 kb.

Even if you increase the attachment file size, you need to check the maximum size of the 'Append to array variable' action in Power Automate. The variable maximum size is 104857600 bytes ~ 104 MB.

Conclusions

You need to properly communicate with your user the maximum file size you have set in your environment so as not to encounter this issue. If you need to know the common errors in the approval workflow, check the reference section.

And if you have tips with the variable issue, let me know, and I’m happy to explore and update the blog and give credits to you. 🤩

Reference

Common Errors Creating and Assigning Flow Approvals (microsoft.com)