Help make Flow Design easier

[AnnaChu]

The Power Automate Designer team would love to hear feedback from the perspective of novice Power Automate users, citizen developers and low coders on their experience with Power Automate Designer. When designing flows, what do they struggle most with? If this sounds like something you’ve heard someone mention, please forward them this pre-screening survey to complete: https://aka.ms/MPA_DesignerFeedback

@kishbuy238 and team are interested in hosting a screen-sharing session to identify opportunities to improve the experience. This survey will be open through to August.

[kishbuy238]

Hi @Henderson87 We are working on Save Draft concept, so it will allow you to save flow with errors- although not auto-save. Also, I like your compose workaround for viewing different parts of expressions. Thank you for your feedback. 

[kishbuy238]

Yes @Formatron we are monitoring this thread. 🙂

[eliotcole]

@kishbuy238 ... nice to see some action here.

Can you please re-enable the Graph API endpoints that were removed (then blocked in the new version), or add HTTP actions to the appropriate connectors to give access to all the endpoints that it covered.

Can you also turn back on the editor functions that you recently removed from the old designer for no apparent reason?

[kishbuy238]

Hi @eliotcole  Thank you for your feedback. Send HTTP Request (v2) is available in new designer. Are you asking why v1 version was removed?

[kishbuy238]

Hi @derouio thank you for your feedback and sorry you are seeing the issue. I'd like to inform you that Copy/Paste single action is available in new designer worldwide today. It will soon be able to copy Scope/conditions/dountil, etc. please stay tuned. Do you mind reaching out to me privately on the issue where your flow was destroyed when switching to classic ? this is a serious issue, and we will take care of it asap. Thank you so much.

[kishbuy238]

Hi @Caspar_Rubin sorry you are seeing the issue. The new designer does open an action properties in a separate left hand pane to reserve the central canvas space for flow visualization. However, this does raise other issues like you mentioned above where you can't screenshot holistically or compare two actions at same time. We are working to support up to two panes by pinning one pane(right click). Please stay tuned. Also, The Show All concept was to ensure we only show the most used/ required parameters of an action rather than overwhelm business users with too many choices. We have plans to show more top used non-required parameters by default which are hidden today behind Show All, so that clicking Show All should not be necessary mostly.

[kishbuy238]

Hi @maxpower45255 You can add rows/groups to write a complex if condition. Please see the picture below. If that does not work/suffice, please let us know how you would like us to improve the experience. 🙂

[kishbuy238]

Hi @Ventit ! We are working on bringing simplified odata editor (like condition action editor) to SharePoint/Excel actions so that you don't have to write complex odata syntax.

[kishbuy238]

Hi @Formatron ! Thank you very much for your thoughtful feedback. Please find my response below:

1. Disabling action- You can't disable all actions, but you can disable select actions by turning on Static Outputs for the action using Settings -> Static Outputs.
2. You can copy/paste action using Right click -> Copy in new designer, or in classic designer use ellipsis -> Copy to Clipboard and add an action -> clipboard tap to paste. 
3. Would love to know how dynamic content UX can be improved.
4. Agree that a formula bar is not yet available to see outputs of different parts of expression, which is in our plans. For now, for debugging purposes, we would recommend using Compose actions.
5. 100% agree on token changing to a long function in expression editor causing readability issues. We are working on it. Please stay tuned.
6. I would need more details on other feedback points. If you could please reach out to kisubedi @ microsoft.com I'd be happy to address your pain points. Thank you.
7.  

[kishbuy238]

Thank you @spamtomas for your thoughtful feedback. With the new designer, a lot of these issues should be fixed, if not please do let us know. Also, we are planning to allow deactivating an action for easier testing. Thank you.

[Henderson87]

Awesome that is good to hear! It would also be great to comment out or turn a section of the flow off at different times. This just lets you continue to work on an active flow without disrupting anything until you are ready to turn it on. Currently you can only make a copy of an existing flow and then edit that one, make it live and turn the old one off. 

[kishbuy238]

Hi @iso ! I noticed the reference changes automatically for Get items action but not for Compose action when the action name is changed. Are there any other actions you are aware of? I will make sure we address this issue. Thank you for your feedback.

[eliotcole]

No ... I am asking why V1 was replaced with V2 and V2 delivers a tiny percent of the functionality. We were told that all of the Graph endpoints that were previously accessible in V1 would be available in HTTP actions in the appropriate connectors.

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@kishbuy238 wrote:

Hi @eliotcole  Thank you for your feedback. Send HTTP Request (v2) is available in new designer. Are you asking why v1 version was removed?

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However, two years later and literally none of the connectors have had that propagation of functionality. This has broken business process for companies, and restricted the ability for people to use the system effectively.

I pay for a plan, so I am not coming at this from a 'wah, you are making things costly' ... because you have not even done that. Plus you should *not* do that! 😅

You should either provide:

• A Graph API Connector - Provide a (non-premium!) Graph API connector to access some key endpoints via actions with an *unrestricted* HTTPS action also available
• HTTPS Actions In All  Microsoft Connectors - Add the HTTPS action to every Microsoft connector and ensure that all Graph API endpoints have coverage in the available connectors

Both choices would not have any security implications because you already restrict the allowable actions by the user who is performing them. However I think it would be far easier for you to implement a dedicated Graph API connector, make the HTTP action the first one for it. You can then monitor the usage of calls, and add easy actions for the top requests.

A reminder, we are not talking about something that 'can be solved by using the HTTP connector and an Entra ID application' or using the Azure HTTP action. Those are both premium actions.

This is functionality that was available, and vital to business process not just in Power Automate, but anywhere the connectors were in play.

[takolota]

Select actions in the new designer now do not recognize the output data type of expressions.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/New-Select-Action-Bug-From-New-Designer-Changes/m...

For example if you have an expression that ends with an int( ) on the outermost piece, the new designer select action will still treat it as a string by default when one runs the flow. Users must switch the select action mapping input to text mode to view the raw JSON object and manually remove each double quote mark around the values they don't want to be stringified.
I found the classic designer still works as expected & recognizes the data type of a dynamic value with an int( ) or bool( ) expression around it, so it is just the new designer that is failing here.

[kishbuy238]

We are working on Save Draft and Publish concepts, to allow draft version of flows (with errors). Please stay tuned.