Execute an action on a set of rows - not running sequentially ?

[Aurelien]

Hi Dear Community

I have an issue that I would like to highlight, and get some advice.

Context:

In order to loop on different tables, I use a combination of two main actions:

- Data:Execute an action on a set of rows (purple arrow below)

- Grouped:Execute a sequence of actions (grey arrow below)

A small picture of what I do below:

The first "Execute an action on a set of rows", highlighted in yellow, create an issue, as I need to operate actions sequentially on each Line Item (righ-side square). 

What I see

- When running it manually, this happens sequentially, so everything is fine

- when running on a "whole" way, it is mixing informations from each LineItems

What I deduct

- "Execute an action on a set of rows" is running on a parallel way and triggers every set of actions simultaneously

What I'm about to do

As a workaround, I'm about to implement an enumList-based action, which would involve:

- initializing EnumList with list of Related LineItems

- fire grouped actions on first item

- remove first LineItem from the EnumList

- fire again

-and so on, while EnumList is not blank.

My question

Did you ever notice such a behavior ? If so, would you have an idea on how to manage this ?

As always, thank you dear Community !

[Rafael_ANEIC-PY]

Hello @Aurelien I have read on some cases of people facing issues with parallel processing:

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/Multiple-rows-processed-by-Action-are-executed-...

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/What-is-the-expected-behavior-of-a-Report-with-...

The only workaround available there is I believe is adopting a workflow where the actions on each row are independent from each other, otherwise it results on unpredictable behavior when run on parallel

[Marc_Dillon]

Yes, reference Actions run in parallel.

You can build a workaround to use a looping construct instead of the reference Action. As just a simple overview, your Actions could be something like this:

A1: Group

  A2: Data change Action

  A3: Execute Action to call A1 again on a single record, the "next" record.