← Al Davies, 250 High Street

Run a scheduled flow on weekdays only

Short answer: use a Recurrence trigger with Frequency set to Week and Interval set to 1. Then pick Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the days box, set the hour and minute, and choose your time zone. The flow then runs on those five days and skips Saturday and Sunday.

Open https://make.powerautomate.com to build it. Exact names may differ a little in your screen.

Why Daily is the wrong choice

The Daily setting runs every day, including Saturday and Sunday. If the flow sends a reminder or a report, your team gets a message on the weekend. Weekly with five days picked fixes that, and it keeps all five days inside one flow. You do not need five flows.

What you need before you start

Step 1. Add the Recurrence trigger

  1. Sign in at https://make.powerautomate.com.
  2. Start a new cloud flow from blank.
  3. Add a trigger and search for Recurrence.
  4. Select Recurrence.

Microsoft's page on scheduled flows lists the same path. It says: "In the search field, enter Recurrence." See Microsoft Learn, "Run a cloud flow on a schedule in Power Automate", in SOURCES.

Step 2. Set Interval and Frequency

Set Interval to 1 and Frequency to Week. Microsoft gives this example: "to run the flow once a week, use Interval = 1 and Frequency = Week."

Interval 1 means every week. If you set Interval to 2, the flow runs every second week, which is not what you want here.

Step 3. Pick Monday to Friday

After you choose Week, the advanced options show a days box. Microsoft's page says:

"In the On these days and At these hours dropdown menus, select the day or days of the week on which the flow should run and the time or times of day when the flow should run."

Pick Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Leave Saturday and Sunday off.

In the classic designer, Microsoft says to select Recurrence and then Show advanced options. In the new designer, you select the trigger and the pane opens on the left. Exact names may differ.

Step 4. Set the hour and the minute

Use the At these hours box for the hour and the At these minutes box for the minute. Microsoft says: "In the At these minutes field, enter the minute values (from 0 to 59) separated by a comma."

For a run at 8:00 AM, set hours to 8 and minutes to 0. For two runs a day, such as 8:00 AM and 1:00 PM, set hours to 8 and 13 and minutes to 0. Hours use the 24-hour clock in the Azure Logic Apps reference, which lets you pick "integers from 0 to 23".

A note on the source: the Azure Logic Apps page describes the same Recurrence trigger for Logic Apps, not for Power Automate. I use it here only to explain the setting names.

Step 5. Choose the time zone and the start time

Microsoft's Power Automate page says: "In the Time zone field, select a time zone from the dropdown list to specify whether the Start time reflects a local time zone, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or other time zone."

Pick your own time zone. Then set the Start time. The format Microsoft shows is YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ. The Z at the end means UTC time. The Azure Logic Apps page says that if you select a time zone, you do not need to add the Z. It also says: "If you do, Azure Logic Apps ignores the time zone value because the "Z" signifies a UTC time format." That is a Logic Apps page. Power Automate may differ, so test it after you save.

One way to start: pick a start date that is a few days ahead, and set the schedule up at least 7 days ahead if you can. The Logic Apps page warns about weekly recurrences with a future start: "Week: Set up the weekly recurrence at least 7 days in advance." Otherwise, it says, "the workflow might skip the first recurrence."

Step 6. Add your action and save

Add the action that should run, such as send an email. Save the flow. Then check the run history on the next scheduled weekday to see that it ran.

Daylight saving time

On daylight saving time, the Logic Apps recurrence page tells you to select a time zone if you want the trigger to follow DST changes. With no time zone chosen, it warns that those changes can shift when the trigger runs. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: always pick a time zone for a flow that people expect at a clock time.

Skipping holidays

Monday to Friday does not know about holidays. A flow set this way still runs on a public holiday that falls on a weekday. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: keep a small SharePoint list of holiday dates. Add a Get items step at the start of the flow that looks for today's date. Use a ge and lt date range in the filter, with the start and end of today. If it finds a row, add a Condition that ends the flow.

If you use Get items, set Top Count, and turn Pagination on if the list may be long. Get items returns 100 rows by default. You can raise Top Count up to 5,000.

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: use the Title column for the holiday name, so each row has a name.

For date math in a flow, see "Add days or business days to a date in Power Automate".

A second way: check the day inside the flow

If you prefer, set the trigger to Daily and add a Condition at the top that checks the day. The Azure Logic Apps reference describes the dayOfWeek function: it returns "the day of the week from the specified timestamp where Sunday is 0, Monday is 1, and so on". So a weekday has a result from 1 to 5.

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: the Weekly trigger with five days picked is simpler, and it does not start a run on Saturday and Sunday at all. The condition approach starts a run every day and then ends it. Use it only if you need a custom rule, such as skipping the first Monday of the month.

What to avoid

If it did not run

If the flow did not run at the time you set, see "Scheduled flow did not run at the set time". For a reminder that goes out before a due date, see "Send a reminder before a due date in a SharePoint list".

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs to build". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

Can I run a flow on weekdays only without a condition?

Yes. Use the Recurrence trigger with Frequency set to Week, and pick Monday to Friday in the days box. Microsoft's page describes selecting "the day or days of the week on which the flow should run".

How do I run it at 8:00 AM every weekday?

Set Frequency to Week, Interval to 1, pick the five days, set hours to 8 and minutes to 0, and choose your time zone. Test it on the next weekday.

Why did my flow run at the wrong hour after the clocks changed?

The Azure Logic Apps page says that without a time zone, "daylight saving time (DST) events might affect when triggers run." Select a time zone on the trigger and check the first run after the change.

Can the flow skip public holidays?

Not by itself. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: keep a holiday list in SharePoint and add a check at the start of the flow that ends the run on those dates.

Can I run it every two weeks on weekdays?

Set Interval to 2 with Frequency Week and pick the five days. Microsoft's example for once a week is "use Interval = 1 and Frequency = Week", so 2 means every second week. Test the first runs to confirm the pattern.

Sources