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Bug? New designer changing fields to default values in Sharepoint Update Item action

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Posted on by biterbit

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I have found an issue when editing my flows using the new designer, when I have a required Yes/No (Boolean) field in an Update Item action using the SharePoint connector.

For example, I have an Update Item action on a SharePoint list with a Choice column called Last risk. In the old designer this shows correctly as not being changed:

When I open the same flow in the new designer, the action now shows the field being set to Green (the default value):

In another example, I have an Update Item action on a SharePoint list with a Yes/No column called Active. In the old designer this shows correctly as being set to No:

When I open the same flow in the new designer, it now shows the field being set to Yes (the default value):

I far as I can tell, this is a bug in the new designer, which is silently altering the action field mappings. I have lots of complex flows and this has already caused an issue for me after I made a small change to an action (not the Update Item action) using the new designer, and then found that some fields in my SharePoint list were now being reset by the flow to their default value.

Has anyone else seen this issue and is Microsoft aware of it?

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Building flows

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trice602 15,404 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @biterbit ,

Yes, there are lots of bugs in the new designer and unfortunately the rollout as a "default designer" is a miss; according to many experienced users. IMO, this should have remained as a Preview item and allow much more time for the product bugs to be resolved. That said, goes without saying, that's my popular opinion.

Here's my recommendation: switch to classic and if you haven't switched in a while, you will get a popup survey asking why you are switching back to classic on this flow. Explain why and help make the product better. I recommend you "try the new designer" and explore the new format (I do love it!) but I build in classic. 100% of the time.

Please mark this as a solution as this is one of the most commonly asked questions about the new designer.

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biterbit 408 on at

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@trice602 Thanks for your response. It's nice to know I am not alone in seeing these issues. I think your recommendation to use the old designer for editing is a good one.

Is there somewhere to see the known issues with the designer to gauge when it is safe to use it?

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trice602 15,404 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @biterbit

Not that I am aware of but if I see something, I will share it with you.

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kathyboots 44 on at

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This was such a devastating bug to find out after the fact of using the new designer. I had to retroactively patch 2,000+ records by parsing the JSON output of my automation runs and manually filtering the affected records because of this default value populating after I explicitly removed it and it re-appeared. This would absolutely need to be fixed.

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trice602 15,404 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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@kathyboots ,

You are not alone. We have all been there! Have a great day!

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steve_hendy 385 on at

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I have a similar bug. If I edit an 'update item in SharePoint' step in, New designer, default values are added to some columns. I had to use old designer to remove the defaults as I wanted them to be blank. If I then edit in old designer the values are still blank. If I then edit in new designer all the default values are there again.
This gives me no confidence in the new designer if it is just changes your code for no reason.

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Joe_Fox 67 on at

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This issue has affected a project I have been working on and the impact was huge! I have a complex workflow that relies on the fields being deliberately set to blank at various stages. I foolishly decided to embrace the new experience as I understand it isn't going away and the aggressive nature of Microsoft's push towards it made switching to classic a tedious and slow process (not sure if others have experienced the incredibly slow loading of the new experience which has to occur before the toggle back to classic becomes active, and note that I've often experienced the browser just crashing when trying to load the new experience). The issue caused the workflows to begin producing unexpected results, rendering the logic in the Power App that the workflow drives littered with incorrect data. It took me a while to figure out exactly what had happened. The project was in the final testing phase too, so out of diligence and precaution, I've had to arrange for the 50+ test cases to be ran again. As I say, the impact was huge. I estimate about 50 hours of extra work involved. I genuinely feel like invoicing Microsoft for that effort. I'm getting incredibly frustrated with Microsoft's premature roll out of buggy software. It needs to stop.

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steve_hendy 385 on at

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It is hard enough writing complicated flows without the added time involved in debugging the editing software, thanks for nothing Microsoft.

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