Order Flow buttons inputs

[Laskewitz]

I would love to be able to reorder the Flow button inputs. If I added name (text) and later on I would decide first name (text) and last name (text) is better for this Flow, I would like to move them to the top of the list.

[CW]

Well look at the bright side. Although you can't save yourself tons of restorative work and likely salary dollars using common sense development, at least you can easily connect to Trello. 😶

[PhilD]

I agree completely with @CW !

Microsoft is chasing down fancy sounding things like AI and mixed reality but some of the most simple, basic things real people need to do real work is missing! This is yet one more example.

What would be really useful (in addition to simply being able to present runtime options in the order that makes sense to the user) would be to use data sources like SharePoint to pull dynamic list content into the Flow to use an input. For example, using a SharePoint list  as the source for a user's choice at runtime would open worlds of functionality that now we have to do using half-baked, manual methods that don't scale very well.

[milosz_p]

I have found out an workaround for this issue.

1. We need to export our flow solution as ZIP package, and extract it's contents

2. Next step we will need to find our flow definition in json format. In my case it's path: 'Microsoft.Flow' --> 'flows' --> 'folder with flow ID' --> 'definition.json'

3. Open 'definition.json', apply pretty print in your favourite text editor (Shift+Alt+F) - I use Visual Studio Code

4. Find section where there are properties of trigger action of your flow, and change order of these properties

5. Save 'definition.json', copy modified file to original exported ZIP and replace it in the same path

6. In Power Automate, import your modified ZIP package (remember to choose update, not create new flow with that ZIP)

7. If import succeeded, test your flow, and you should have correct order of inputs in your action 🙂

[CW]

Wow that's amazing Milosz!

Congratulations. However, I won't be doing that. I don't do workarounds or hacks on MSFT stuff any longer.

If that type of functionality is sooooooo hard for poor MSFT to implement after having originally then there's a good Italian term to fit the situation.

I don't use that any longer due to these type of limitations/omissions.

What kind of company let's their paying customers consistently have to implement their own hacks in order to use the tech as EXPECTED then simply recommend they add it to some inane UserVoice wishlist????!!!! Really??

[PhilD]

I completely agree with you @CW , well said.

It's like if you bought a car and found out that if you lock the doors while in the car, you have to climb out the window and use your key to open the trunk to get the doors to open again and when you told the dealer, they said, "if you would like the feature of opening the door from the inside as well as the outside, put an entry in the user voice".

Or I could just buy a different car 😕

[afabozzi]

Thanks @milosz_p I will try this out.

I can agree that this functionality seems simple however as I learn more about coding something simple may not be so simple on the back end and have gained appreciation for the functionality I have.

+1 for dragging the items in the order you want or having an up/down arrow to rearrange them.

[afabozzi]

I had some hiccups when doing this so I created a step by step. Basically Notepad++ JSTool plugin was throwing off the order of the code for some reason. When I used Visual Studio Code as @milosz_p suggested it worked great!! thanks!!

https://www.fabozzi.net/power-automate-change-input-order-of-instant-flow/ 

[milosz_p]

@afabozzi I am glad that this worked for you 🙂 

It's nice that you made article on your blog and provided reference for this thread.

[HEATFreight]

@milosz_p Ughhh I don't want to have to do this but thank you for the tip!

Will try to keep this in mind if I can't resolve by editing the trigger. In my case it appears that the trigger re-orders the inputs in alphabetical order. So if I carefully choose my input names, I should be able to avoid having to use your workaround. Still an extremely useful trick!

Thanks