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Troubleshooting: Control 2.21 — AI Marketing Claims and Substantiation

Last Updated: April 2026 Primary Owners: Compliance Officer (process), SharePoint Admin (list/library), Power Platform Admin (flows) Escalation Path: Functional admin → AI Governance Lead → Compliance Officer → Legal Counsel

Diagnostic order of operations

When a claim or workflow is not behaving as expected, work through the diagnostics in this order — each step rules out a class of cause:

  1. Item state — confirm the list item exists and Status is what you expect.
  2. Flow run history — confirm the flow triggered and check the last failed action.
  3. Approval record — confirm an approval was created and routed to a real, active user.
  4. Permissions — confirm the actor has the required SharePoint and Power Automate permissions.
  5. Connections — confirm the SharePoint, Outlook, and Approvals connections in the flow are still authorized.

Issue 1 — Approval workflow does not trigger

Symptoms

  • Submitter saves a claim and changes Status to Under Review, but no approval is generated.
  • Power Automate run history shows no recent runs, or runs marked Skipped.
  • Approvers receive nothing.

Diagnosis

  1. Power Automate → My flows — confirm the flow is On. Flows automatically turn off after repeated failures or after 90 days without a successful run.
  2. Open the flow → Run history — if the trigger fires but the run is Skipped, the trigger condition (Status eq 'Under Review') likely did not evaluate true. Common cause: the submitter saved with Status = Draft and never moved to Under Review.
  3. Open the flow in edit view — check the trigger card for a Trigger condition filter and confirm the column internal name matches ClaimStatus (not the display name).
  4. Check the SharePoint connection — re-authenticate if the connection icon shows a warning.
  5. If the flow runs but no approval is generated, inspect the Start and wait for an approval action: the dynamic Compliance Reviewer field may be empty, in which case Power Automate cannot route the approval.

Resolution

  • Set the trigger to When an item is created or modified with a trigger condition @equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/ClaimStatus/Value'], 'Under Review').
  • Provide a fallback recipient (Compliance shared mailbox or distribution group) when the per-item reviewer is empty.
  • Re-authenticate connections; re-enable the flow.

Symptoms

  • The Substantiation File link is present but clicking returns a SharePoint not-found page or an access-denied page.

Diagnosis

  1. Confirm the document still exists at the expected location (it may have been moved or renamed, which breaks the stored URL — SharePoint stored hyperlinks are not auto-updated).
  2. Confirm the URL is fully qualified (https://<tenant>.sharepoint.com/...), not relative.
  3. Confirm the user opening the link has at least Read access to the substantiation library. Submitters typically need Contribute to the inventory list and Read on the library — verify both.

Resolution

  • Re-link by copying the URL from the document's ... → Copy link dialog (use a "people in your organization can view" or scoped link consistent with firm policy).
  • Where documents move frequently, consider replacing the hyperlink column with a managed metadata or lookup column tied to a stable identifier.

Issue 3 — Quarterly reminders are not delivered

Symptoms

  • Approved claims pass their Next Review Date with no reminder email.
  • Scheduled flow shows no recent runs, or runs return zero items.

Diagnosis

  1. Open the scheduled flow → Run history. If runs do not appear, check the recurrence schedule and confirm the flow is On.
  2. Open the Get items action's run output — if the array is empty, the OData filter is too restrictive or the field internal names are wrong.
  3. Confirm the OData filter uses the internal field names: ClaimStatus eq 'Approved' and NextReviewDate le '@{addDays(utcNow(),14)}'.
  4. Confirm the Compliance Reviewer field is populated on the affected claims; if empty, the email recipient is null and the Send an email action fails silently.

Resolution

  • Correct the OData filter and field references.
  • Add a fallback recipient (Compliance group mailbox) for claims with an empty Compliance Reviewer.
  • Add a top-level Scope with a Configure run after on a final notification step so failures are surfaced to the flow owner.

Issue 4 — Claim stuck in "Under Review"

Symptoms

  • Claim shows Under Review for days; flow run shows Running; no progress.

Diagnosis

  1. Open the run → identify which Start and wait for an approval action is pending.
  2. Confirm the assigned approver is active in the directory (not disabled, not departed).
  3. The approver should check Power Automate → Action items → Approvals, the Microsoft 365 approval email, and the Approvals app in Microsoft Teams. Approvals can be claimed from any of these surfaces.
  4. Power Automate approvals time out after 30 days by default; longer waits may be the result of a missed reassignment.

Resolution

  • Reassign the approval (approval owners can reassign from the Approvals UI).
  • If the approver has departed, cancel the run, set Status = Draft, repopulate the Compliance Reviewer field with a current approver, and resubmit.
  • Add a periodic reminder action (e.g., Send an email after a Delay of 3 days inside the approval scope) to reduce missed approvals.

Issue 5 — PowerShell export fails or returns an empty file

Symptoms

  • Export-AIClaimsReport.ps1 raises an authentication error, returns no rows, or returns rows with empty fields.

Diagnosis

  1. Confirm PowerShell edition is 7.2 or later — PnP.PowerShell v2 will not load on Windows PowerShell 5.1.
  2. Confirm the module is loaded at the CAB-pinned version: Get-Module PnP.PowerShell | Format-List Name, Version.
  3. Confirm -AzureEnvironment matches the tenant cloud. A Commercial connection against a GCC High tenant returns zero results without error — a classic source of false-clean evidence.
  4. Confirm the executing account has at least Read on the AI Governance site.
  5. For a list with more than 5,000 items, ensure -PageSize 500 is set and that you are not hitting a list-view threshold caused by an unindexed filter.

Resolution

  • Re-run with the correct PowerShell edition, pinned module version, and -AzureEnvironment value.
  • Re-authenticate: Disconnect-PnPOnline; Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteUrl -Interactive -AzureEnvironment <env>.
  • Add an index on NextReviewDate and ClaimStatus if you frequently query large historical datasets.

Issue 6 — Duplicate claims

Symptoms

  • The same claim text appears multiple times; the workflow may have triggered more than once.

Diagnosis

  1. Sort the list by Submission Date and Claim Text to identify duplicates.
  2. Inspect flow run history for duplicate triggers (a "When an item is created or modified" trigger fires on every save, which is expected — the trigger condition on Status should suppress duplicates).
  3. Confirm the trigger condition on Status = 'Under Review' is in place; without it, every edit re-runs the approval flow.

Resolution

  • Add or correct the trigger condition.
  • Resolve in-flight duplicates by setting the duplicates to Status = Withdrawn and noting the authoritative claim ID in Review Comments (do not delete — preserve the audit trail per books-and-records expectations).
  • Consider adding a Power Apps form for submission with simple duplicate detection (search the inventory by claim text on submit).

Issue 7 — Retention label not applied to new uploads

Symptoms

  • Documents uploaded to the substantiation library show no retention label in the Details pane, even though a Purview policy targets the library.

Diagnosis

  1. Confirm the Purview retention label policy is Published and that its location includes the AI Governance site or specifically the substantiation library.
  2. Policy propagation can take up to 24 hours after publication; check the policy's Status and Last refresh times.
  3. Confirm the library has a default retention label set (Library settings → Apply label to items in this list or library).
  4. Confirm the executing user has at least Edit permission on the library — readers cannot apply labels.

Resolution

  • Set the default label on the library so new items inherit it automatically.
  • Wait for policy propagation (up to 24 hours) before declaring failure.
  • For pre-existing items, run a Bulk apply label action from the library command bar.

Escalation matrix

Issue type First responder Escalation 1 Escalation 2
Flow failure Power Platform Admin AI Governance Lead Microsoft Support
List / library / retention SharePoint Admin Purview Compliance Admin Microsoft Support
Permission issues SharePoint Admin Entra Security Admin IT Director
Disputed claim content Compliance Officer Legal Counsel Chief Compliance Officer
Regulatory interpretation Legal Counsel External Counsel Applicable regulator
Urgent claim blocking marketing Compliance Officer Legal Counsel CCO + General Counsel

Known limitations

Limitation Workaround Status
Power Automate approval default timeout (30 days) Add periodic reminder inside approval scope; reassign on time-out By design
SharePoint hyperlink columns do not track moved/renamed files Use Library command bar Copy link when relinking; consider managed metadata By design
Out-of-the-box list does not enforce duplicate detection Add a Power Apps submission form with pre-submit lookup Future enhancement
Retention label policy propagation can take up to 24 hours Schedule label changes outside change-window cutoffs By design
Mobile experience for the Approvals app may differ from desktop Use the Approvals app in Teams on supported devices Microsoft platform behavior

Support contacts (template)

Role Responsibility Contact
Compliance Officer Claim review, regulatory questions compliance@example.com
AI Governance Lead Technical accuracy validation ai-governance@example.com
SharePoint Admin List, library, retention configuration sharepoint-support@example.com
Power Platform Admin Flow configuration and run-history triage powerplatform@example.com
Purview Compliance Admin Retention labels and policies purview-support@example.com
Legal Counsel Regulatory interpretation; high-risk claims legal@example.com

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