I’ve covered launching a flow for a list item using List Formatting a number of times, along with conditionally launching a flow, and recently I even showed how to take advantage of background list updates with automatic format updates using Flow.

In this post I’ll demonstrate some new tweaks the team has made that lets you customize the flow panel itself using list formatting!

Specifically, you can now provide custom text for the panel header and/or the run flow button:

This goes a long way to making the flow panel less scary. The words “Run flow” don’t mean a whole lot to users. Even if you’ve named your flow well, it can still be confusing. Now you can make things even easier by providing context and meaning directly in the panel. You could even customize these values based on values of the list item!

Customizing the Flow Panel

Here is a very basic flow button Column Format from the generic-rowactions sample:

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/column-formatting.schema.json",
  "elmType": "button",
  "customRowAction": {
    "action": "executeFlow",
    "actionParams": "{\"id\":\"f7ecec0b-15c5-419f-8211-302a5d4e94f1\"}"
  },
  "attributes": {
    "class": "ms-fontColor-themePrimary ms-fontColor-themeDark--hover",
    "title": "Launch Flow"
  },
  "style": {
    "border": "none",
    "background-color": "transparent",
    "cursor": "pointer"
  },
  "children": [
    {
      "elmType": "span",
      "attributes": {
        "iconName": "Flow",
        "class": "ms-font-xxl"
      }
    }
  ]
}

The part we’re interested in is line 6, the actionParams. The actionParams property is currently only used for the executeFlow action. It is an escaped JSON string (the double quotes have a slash in front of them). And thus far, it’s been used to specify the ID of the flow.

Now you can specify the headerText and the runFlowButtonText properties inside of actionParams as well! Here’s what that looks like using the above format:

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/column-formatting.schema.json",
  "elmType": "button",
  "customRowAction": {
    "action": "executeFlow",
    "actionParams": "{\"id\":\"f7ecec0b-15c5-419f-8211-302a5d4e94f1\", \"headerText\":\"Do the things and stuff\",\"runFlowButtonText\":\"Lazerify!\"}"
  },
  "attributes": {
    "class": "ms-fontColor-themePrimary ms-fontColor-themeDark--hover",
    "title": "Launch Flow"
  },
  "style": {
    "border": "none",
    "background-color": "transparent",
    "cursor": "pointer"
  },
  "children": [
    {
      "elmType": "span",
      "attributes": {
        "iconName": "Flow",
        "class": "ms-font-xxl"
      }
    }
  ]
}

The ID is always required but you can specify either or both of the headerText and runFlowButtonText to provide that customization:

Escaped Property	What it does
ID	The ID of the flow to run. This is required.
headerText	Replaces the big text at the top of the panel with whatever you specify.
runFlowButtonText	Sets the text of the primary button with whatever you specify.

Some things to keep in mind:

• headerText will wrap if you get especially wordy:

• But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. It’s best to keep the header as short and concise as possible. (for anyone who wants to ignore me, I’ve found I had no problem displaying 5000+ characters)
• runFlowButtonText will also allow you to put a large amount of text in the button, but it looks terrible because the cancel button wraps below it somewhere around 14-16 characters:

• Unlike the headerText, runFlowButtonText will eventually just run off the screen as it never wraps to a new line.
• Changing these properties does nothing to obscure connection details or the name of the Flow (yay!)
• The headerText is shown even the first time a flow is executed (when the user is asked about the connections used), but as you might expect, the runFlowbuttonText is not:

This is a fantastic addition by the team! Making a flow button that simplifies launching a flow for an item is a great way to increase adoption, decrease confusion, and impress your boss! Special thanks to Cyrus Balsara (Microsoft) for letting me know about these awesome changes!