Cloud flows designer

What it does

The cloud flows designer is where you build, configure and test cloud flows. The current designer puts a compact card canvas in the centre and a configuration pane on the left, with Copilot alongside. The classic designer, with its large expanding cards, is still there behind a toggle.

Key facts

Each action's configuration pane has Parameters, Settings, Code View and Testing tabs. Settings is where action timeout, retry policy, Run After, secure inputs/outputs and tracked properties live.
Code View shows the JSON behind the selected card and updates live as you edit parameters. It's read-alongside, not a free-text editor for the whole definition.
The expression editor is multi-line with a gripper, expands to full page, and has a search box across both Dynamic content and Function views. A forward slash in any input field opens it.
Copy and paste works on atomic actions and on containers like Scope, Condition, Switch and Apply to each, including between flows. Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V work too. Pasted actions get -copy appended.
Solution-aware flows get Save draft and Publish buttons plus a version history panel in Dataverse. Draft records expire after six months, published records after 12.
Non-solution flows have no draft support. The designer compensates by saving a copy to browser storage on a failed save, recoverable with the Recover flow button — until the browser cache is cleared.
Comments aren't supported in the new designer. Action notes are the replacement, added via the More commands (⋮) menu.
Pin action holds one configuration pane open so a second opens beside it, which is how you compare or copy values between two actions.

When to use / skip

The new designer is the one to standardise on — versioning, drafts and Copilot only exist there. Keep the classic toggle in your back pocket for the handful of flows that won't open, notably Power Apps v1 triggers, the Dataverse changeset request group, Microsoft 365 Compliance triggers, Power Pages-called flows, and older non-OpenAPI connection formats. If a client's estate is full of those, plan a remediation pass rather than telling makers to switch designers case by case.

Configuration decisions

Whether flows are created in solutions by default, since that's the gate on drafts and version history.
Whether makers are trained on notes as the documentation mechanism, given comments aren't available.
Whether Secure inputs and Secure outputs get switched on for actions handling personal or credential data, accepting that it hides the values from run history for support too.
How much version history you rely on, given the six and 12 month expiry windows.

Gotchas

Adding a column in SharePoint, Excel or Dataverse doesn't make it appear in an existing action. You have to delete the action and re-add it to force the designer to re-read the schema, which loses the configuration.
The new designer isn't available inside integration surfaces like Solution Explorer, Power Apps or Teams. Open the flow from its detail page or the Power Automate portal to get it.
A solution flow using connections instead of connection references won't open in the new designer. Export in an unmanaged solution and re-import to convert it.
Browser recovery is not a backup. Clearing cache or cookies deletes the unsaved copy with no warning, and saving the recovered copy overwrites the last saved version.
The designer doesn't support browsers more than two years old, and the failure mode is a cryptic JavaScript error at sign-in.

Consultant notes

Make solution-aware flows the standard from day one on any engagement. Retrofitting flows into solutions later to get versioning is far more painful than starting there.
Set the expectation early that version history is a safety net, not source control. ALM still runs through solutions and pipelines.
Static Result on the Testing tab is the fastest way to demo failure paths without breaking anything. Worth showing during error-handling training, and worth warning people to turn back off.
Notes are per-action and easy to lose in a busy canvas. Pair them with a naming convention on actions so the run history reads sensibly on its own.

Recheck when the classic designer is finally retired, or if drafts and versioning reach non-solution flows.