What to do when execution is slow

Power Automate Desktop gets through business workflows far faster than a person can, but processes with many loops can still feel slow.

This article explains several ways to speed up execution, even a little.

Speed difference between running from the designer and from the flow list

The first thing to keep in mind is that a flow runs at a different speed depending on whether you start it from the flow editing window (the flow designer) or from the list of flows.

In the flow designer, the status bar at the bottom of the window has a field called “Run delay”. After each action runs, the flow waits for the number of milliseconds set here (100 milliseconds in the image below).

This delay doesn’t apply when you run a flow from the list, so if you’ve been running your flow from the designer, try running it from the list instead. When you run a flow in the designer, you can also shorten the wait by lowering the “Run delay” value.

Errors and timeouts

When a flow includes steps that are optional, or steps that only need to run in certain situations, the approach that keeps the number of actions lowest is to configure the “On error” handling that each action provides.

If you use this setting, however, you need to pay attention to the timeout.

Even if the action is set to continue to the next action when an error occurs, if its timeout is set to 30 seconds, the flow waits on that action for up to 30 seconds before the error is detected.