What 'ticks(outputs)' is used for in Power Automate flows?

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Posted on by Joel D

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Hi,

I'm studying Power Automate flows and would like to better understand some expressions used inside the steps, but I couldn't find a related documentation.

I found the function ticks() with the parameter outputs inside a flow step.

Below the entire expression:

Can you please explain to me "step by step" the expression above?

Is the '?' a ternary operator (and if so, why do I need it here, and what the condition should be)?

I assume that "Test variable" is getting the value of the field dateto, but where is defined which entity the field is taken from?

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Wahaj Rashid 11,321 on at

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Hi,

Thank you for your query.

The expression calculates the ticks (interval) for the DateTo column.

DateTo column is being read from the body/output from a previous step.

Most probably, you will have a for-each step before this step, expressions calculate the ticks and stores in the Test Variable. If it is not for each, this is also possible, previous step is a web API call and the output is a JSON object (which is returned by web API).

To find out which column is DateTo, look at the previous actions, or share a full snapshot of the flow.

To understand the use of '?', please look at the following post:

Solved: Use of Question Mark(?) in expressions - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

Here is a nice post on ticks expression:

Flow - Calculate Date Diference - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

In general, following the Microsoft learning module is a good start to learn about expressions:

Introduction to expressions in Power Automate - Learn | Microsoft Docs

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Community Member on at

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Hi,

1. This expression returns the number of ticks since the specified timestamp, you can get more information about it from this official documentation:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/workflow-definition-language-functions-reference#ticks

2. The output expression is the output of the previous action.

3. The '?' is not a ternary operator, it is used to get the next level of data, and use `? ` can avoid null error.

For example, I added a compose action ,you can get the date from the output by using this expression:

ticks(outputs('Compose')?['date'])

The design for my Power Automate:

This is my test result:

4. The value of the ‘dateto’ field is created or received by your previous steps, just like the date field in my compose action.

If this helped you, I'd appreciate it if you'd mark this as a Verified Answer, which may in turn help others as well.

Best Regards,

Frank Gong

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Joel D 363 on at

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Hi,

Thank you for your replies, which have been really useful.

I found another expression which is not clear to me. This another one uses the function sub(A.B), but instead of B, it seems that there is a nested expression:

sub(0, items('Name_of_the_previous_action_inside_the_current_step')?[nameOfTheFieldOfTheEntityRetrievedInThePreviousAction']).

I assume that 0 is the minuend, the rest of the expression is the subtrahend.

Is it correct? If yes, the value returned for nameOfTheFieldOfTheEntityRetrievedInThePreviousAction will be 0 minus the value previously assigned to nameOfTheFieldOfTheEntityRetrievedInThePreviousAction ...but it does not make sense for me, so it most likely means something different, but I could not find any relevant example with the related explanation, could you please help?

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