PL-900 Practice Question: Demonstrate the capabilities of Power Automate
A Power Automate cloud flow uses an 'Apply to each' loop to process 5,000 items from a SharePoint list. The flow is taking a long time to complete, and the maker wants to reduce the run duration. The loop contains only a 'Send an email' action that is independent for each item. What should the maker do?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is thinking that increasing the timeout or changing the loop type will speed up processing, when only concurrency control parallelizes iterations.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable concurrency control on the 'Apply to each' loop and set a degree of parallelism.
Enabling concurrency control on 'Apply to each' allows independent iterations to execute in parallel, which significantly reduces the overall run time for large collections. The other options either change the loop logic, extend timeouts, or alter the email behavior, none of which optimize the sequential processing that causes the delay.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the flow's timeout setting to allow more time for the loop to finish.
Why it's wrong here
Increasing the timeout does not reduce the run duration; it only allows the flow to run longer before being terminated. The goal is to make the flow complete faster, not to extend the allowed time. This setting is for flows that legitimately need more time, not for optimizing a slow loop.
- ✓
Enable concurrency control on the 'Apply to each' loop and set a degree of parallelism.
Why this is correct
Concurrency control on 'Apply to each' allows multiple iterations to run in parallel. Since the email action is independent per item, increasing the degree of parallelism reduces the total run time. This is the appropriate setting to speed up the loop without changing its logic or the data being processed.
- ✗
Move the 'Send an email' action outside the 'Apply to each' loop and send a single summary email.
Why it's wrong here
Moving the action outside the loop would change the behavior from sending one email per item to sending a single summary email, which may not be acceptable. It also does not address the performance of processing 5,000 items. This changes the requirement rather than optimizing the existing loop, so it is not the correct approach here.
- ✗
Replace the 'Apply to each' loop with a 'Do until' loop that runs until all items are processed.
Why it's wrong here
A 'Do until' loop repeats until a condition is met and does not inherently parallelize iterations. It would likely be slower and more complex than the existing loop. Replacing the loop does not address the sequential execution that causes the long run time, so it is not the right optimization for this scenario.
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Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
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