Button in SharePoint List to Trigger Power Automate
In SharePoint modern lists, conditional formatting can be done, and there is a great detailed reference by Microsoft. I was trying to find a way to create a nice pretty button right there on a SharePoint list, to quickly click to run a workflow. With that in place, end users won’t have to wonder which menu and where to click in order to get that item approved (or run any workflow at all).
Microsoft’s reference on how to do this is here.
After reading this and trying it myself, I made a couple of tweaks to it, that you may like. In this post, I’ll explain how it works, and what I did. Here are a couple of examples, one with a list (Customers), and one with a library (Policies):
There are two ways I’ll demonstrate, one way is with a hyperlink, and the other with a button. The Policy Owner column above is a hyperlink, and the Button column is a button.
Check out my Advanced Power Automate Course
First of all, you’ll need to decide which Flow you want to run, and get the GUID of it. Here’s how to create a flow if you don’t already have one, using a specific template for manager approval. The important thing is that its trigger is based on the selected item, NOT based on when an item is created or modified.
- Go to https://flow.microsoft.com
- In your list or library, click the Flow drop-down in the toolbar, and choose Create a Flow.
- Choose the Flow called “Request manager approval for a selected item”.
- On the next screen, click Continue.
- Now, in the flow design screen, click Save at the top right.
- Go back to your list of Flows, and then open this Flow. For any flow in your list, here’s how to get the GUID, it’s in the URL.
- My URL looks like this https: //us.flow.microsoft.com/manage/environments/Default-9d3ccee1-5cf8-4e08-887c-53b2a210967b/flows/de138f88-1e85-5d0f-a3ad-fa9b0c9e5ac5/details. I just need that part in red. Copy just that part to your clipboard. de138f88-1e85-5d0f-a3ad-fa9b0c9e5ac5
- You’ll also need to share this Flow so that other people can run it besides you. Add users or AD groups as run-only users:
Next, I’ll show you how to create the column as a hyperlink. It doesn’t matter what kind of column it is, or even if it has a value in it or not.
My policy owner’s name is in a people column called Policy_x0020_Owner
-
- Go to your list or library, click on the name of the column, and click Column settings, then choose Format this column.
- Your pane will show on the right side of the screen, to paste this code in.
- Go to your list or library, click on the name of the column, and click Column settings, then choose Format this column.
{
“$schema”: “https: //developer.microsoft.com/en-us/json-schemas/sp/column-formatting.schema.json”,
“elmType”: “span”,
“style”: {
“color”: “#0078d7”
},
“children”: [
{
“elmType”: “span”,
“attributes”: {
“iconName”: “Flow”
}
},
{
“elmType”: “button”,
“style”: {
“border”: “none”,
“background-color”: “transparent”,
“color”: “#0078d7”,
“cursor”: “pointer”
},
“txtContent”: {
“operator”: “+”,
“operands”: [
“[$Policy_x0020_Owner.title]”,
“ Approval”
]
},
“customRowAction”: {
“action”: “executeFlow”,
“actionParams”: “{\”id\”: \”86dfdf10-8d99-4914-8e98-fe4b21ed7e34\”}”
}
}
]
}
- I’ve color coded the parts that I changed, to explain what each one is.
Red – My Flow GUID that I obtained in that first set of steps above
Purple – the name of my column. The only reason I had to put the .title in it, is because it’s a person column. All column types don’t need this extra part. Reference.
Blue – the word that I’m showing after the person’s name
Green – the name of the icon that I’m showing in front of the person’s name. This one is called Flow, but there are bunch of others here.
Next, I’ll show you how to create the column as a button, shown above in my Button column, which is just a text column with nothing in it. Do step one from above first, then in the column formatting box, use this code:
{
{
“elmType”: “button”,
“txtContent”: “Get Approved“,
“customRowAction”: {
“action”: “executeFlow”,
“actionParams”: “{\”id\”: \”f191e7c8-1a36-4553-9d64-607764fc6f83\”}”
}}
This one is much simpler. I didn’t make the text dynamic at all, it just says Get Approved for all of them. Clicking the button launches my Flow.
Red – my Flow GUID.
Blue – the words on the button
What if I want the button to be a different color? Then, the code would look like this instead, with a purple button with white text:
{
“elmType”: “button”,
“txtContent”: “Get Approved”,
“customRowAction”: {
“action”: “executeFlow”,
“actionParams”: “{\”id\”: \”86dfdf10-8d99-4914-8e98-fe4b21ed7e34\”}”
},
“style”: {
“background-color”: “purple“,
“color”: “white”
}}
What if you only want the button to show under a certain condition. In this example, I only want this button to be visible if the content approval status is “Pending”. Here’s the code for that:
{
“elmType”: “button”,
“txtContent”: “Get Approved”,
“customRowAction”: {
“action”: “executeFlow”,
“actionParams”: “{\”id\”: \”86dfdf10-8d99-4914-8e98-fe4b21ed7e34\”}”
},
“style”: {
“background-color”: “purple”,
“color”: “white”,
“visibility”: {
“operator”: “?”,
“operands”: [
{
“operator”: “==”,
“operands”: [
“[$_ModerationStatus]”,
“Pending”
]
},
“visible”,
“hidden”
]
}
}
}
In the above code, here are the important parts:
Red – my column’s system name is _ModerationStatus
Blue – the value of the status is pending
In the syntax, a question mark (?) operator is used to create a condition, like an IF statement. So, in the “visibility” section of the code above, we’re saying IF the ModerationStatus equals (==) Pending, then “visible”, otherwise (if it’s not pending), then “hidden”.
Here’s my SharePoint Power Hour video where I demonstrated how to do all of this, along with how to do the workflow that works with the content approval status in the list/library.
Pingback: Personnaliser un flux d’approbation par Power Automate | KTNN SharePoint
can you execute a flow without the next step that always popup
LikeLike
No.
LikeLike
Hey Laura-you’ve been so helpful over the years. The USMC is just now migrating from 13 to Online. Yeah I know…lol. I’ve been able to successfully automate a document set library with a 4 layer approval, however, I am trying to start it with a button – I want to insert the button on the document set welcome page. I have inserted it in the column like you did – thank you for that, but my flow just spins. Nothing seems to be wrong with it. I keep seeing that manual flows don’t work on document sets…but but but…this can’t be true…
LikeLike
Sorry I’ve never tried that on a document set, but it doesn’t surprise me that it doesn’t work, since a document set is really a folder, and folders can’t typically be triggers for flows.
LikeLike
Hey Laura,
Loving some of the snippets you post up. Any chance you can extend this to include showing different buttons depending on status column… eg.
if (approvalStatus) = ‘pending’ {
buttontext = ‘submit for approval’
elseif (approvalStatus = ‘approved’){
buttontext = ‘set unapproved’
}
Can you do switches with formatting on columns? Do you have any good articles you’ve published about understanding the formatting options, or can link to any good resources?
Thanks from Australia!
LikeLike
In the part of the post that starts with “What if you only want the button to show under a certain condition…” that’s where I show that syntax. I don’t know much more about JSON than that, though.
LikeLike
Hi Laura
Even the button is there and ID of Flow is adapted no action on click. Also I cannot see my flow to be launched manually on the corresponding sharepoint list. Is there anything I need to do on the flow itself in order to publish it on a specific list?
LikeLike
In step 2 of the instructions in the blog post, it says to go to your list, and click “create a flow”. That’s how it knows which list.
LikeLike
found it out finally…..as my Environment for Flows (Dev) is not the same as for the Sharepoint as such I needed to add the full path from the flow reference as you get on Export -> Get Flow Identifier and not only the ID that way it worked 🙂
LikeLike
Hi Laura – great Site. Worked for me that way. Is there any way to Handover a specific Field value from the List Row as a parameter to the Flow Input Fields?
LikeLike
The flow already knows all of the data about the item that you clicked on. There is already a get item action built in that gives you that data.
LikeLike
This is a very nice post. I have a question/concern. The button only launch the flow for the 1st time but if we cancel the launch and click on the button again nothing happens unless we refresh the page and click the button again. Is there any solution for it?
LikeLike
I don’t know of a solution.
LikeLike
I noticed that the workflow’s trigger is “on a selected item/file”. is it possible to use the manual trigger instead so that I can use this workflow in other libraries?
LikeLike
Check out my other post, which addresses that: https://wonderlaura.com/2019/12/20/trigger-a-flow-from-multiple-sharepoint-libraries/
LikeLike
Works like a charm ! Thank you so much Laura !
LikeLike
Thanks WonderLaura. This is a great solution that I’ve used several times now so thanks for that. I have just found an issue which looks like a SharePoint bug or limitation perhaps and wondered if you had any knowledge of it. If I add the list into a Modern Page I can click on the button to launch the Flow but absolutely nothing happens. Any thoughts? What I really want to be able to do is offer the end user the ability to sit on their home page and launch the Flow so I thought having a dummy list to support this functionality would work well. If there’s another way you know of to allow a user to run a specific Flow from a Modern Page then I’m up for that!
Thanks again, you’re one of my very few go tos
LikeLike
Yep, and I teach that in my Advanced Power Automate course online: https://www.iwmentor.com/courses/take/flow/lessons/7124756-manual-triggers. Basically you share it with someone as a run-only user, and it sends the hyperlink in an email. Use that hyperlink from the email.
LikeLike