Power Automate, why won’t you show up?

In this video, I explore the strange disappearance of the “Automate” action group on some pages, check it out: (Link is updated to the right video now)

https://youtu.be/z91tJ3wePss

In this video, Erik investigates a puzzling issue with Business Central’s Power Automate integration: the “Automate” action group doesn’t appear on custom pages, even though Microsoft’s documentation says it should. He digs into the root cause, shares the explanation he received from Microsoft, and demonstrates a workaround.

The Exciting New Feature in Business Central 20.2

Business Central 20.2 introduced an exciting capability: the ability to connect Power Automate flows from any page. According to the official documentation (available since May 16th), every list, card, and document page that runs in the context of a data table now features a new “Automate” group in the action bar. From that group, users can run manual flows defined for Business Central.

That sounds pretty cool — but then the calls started coming in.

The Problem: “Power Automate Won’t Show Up!”

Erik began receiving calls from customers — particularly those using the Object Designer — saying that the Power Automate option wasn’t showing up on their custom pages. The initial reaction was confusion: there’s no AL code that controls this, and the documentation clearly states it should appear on every list, card, and document page running on a data table.

To reproduce the issue, Erik created a simple test list page before recording the video:

page 50133 "Test List"
{
    Caption = 'Test List';
    PageType = List;
    SourceTable = Customer;

    layout
    {
        area(content)
        {
            repeater(General)
            {
                field("No."; Rec."No.")
                {
                    ToolTip = 'Specifies the number of the customer.';
                    ApplicationArea = All;
                }
                field(Name; Rec.Name)
                {
                    ToolTip = 'Specifies the customer''s name.';
                    ApplicationArea = All;
                }
                field(Address; Rec.Address)
                {
                    ToolTip = 'Specifies the customer''s address.';
                    ApplicationArea = All;
                }
                field(City; Rec.City)
                {
                    ToolTip = 'Specifies the customer''s city.';
                    ApplicationArea = All;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

This is clearly a list page, clearly running on a real table (Customer), and it shows fields — yet when viewing it in Business Central (confirmed as version 20.x by the presence of Shopify), there was no “Automate” group in the action bar. Meanwhile, navigating to the standard Customers list or a Customer Card showed the Automate group just fine.

The Explanation from Microsoft

After reaching out to Microsoft, Erik received a more detailed explanation of when the Automate group actually appears. The conditions are more nuanced than the documentation suggests:

  1. Page type must be List, Card, Document, ListPlus, or Worksheet
  2. Not used as a dialog — For example, when you look up a customer from a sales order, the customer list opens as a dialog, and the Automate group won’t appear there
  3. Not embedded — Pages that appear as FactBoxes or as line subpages (like sales order lines) won’t show the Automate group
  4. Must use a real table — Temporary tables won’t trigger the Automate group to appear
  5. Must have AL-based actions defined — This is the critical and somewhat surprising requirement

That last point is the key issue. If your page has no AL actions defined — which is common for simple list pages or pages created with the Object Designer — the Automate group simply won’t appear.

The Workaround: A Hidden Dummy Action

Erik experimented live with several approaches to get the Automate group to appear with minimal visual impact:

  • Adding a visible action — Works, but clutters the UI with a pointless button
  • Setting Visible = false — The Automate group doesn’t appear when the only action is invisible (a hidden variable-controlled boolean was tested)
  • Setting Enabled = false — This approach works! The action is present in the AL code (satisfying the requirement), but disabled so users can’t click it
  • Setting Caption = '' (empty string) — Combined with Enabled = false, this makes the action as non-intrusive as possible

The final workaround that Erik landed on was adding a dummy action with an empty caption and disabled state:

page 50133 "Test List"
{
    Caption = 'Test List';
    PageType = List;
    SourceTable = Customer;

    layout
    {
        area(content)
        {
            repeater(General)
            {
                field("No."; Rec."No.")
                {
                    ToolTip = 'Specifies the number of the customer. The field is either filled automatically from a defined number series, or you enter the number manually because you have enabled manual number entry in the number-series setup.';
                    ApplicationArea = All;
                }
                field(Name; Rec.Name)
                {
                    ToolTip = 'Specifies the customer''s name.';
                    ApplicationArea = All;
                }
                field(Address; Rec.Address)
                {
                    ToolTip = 'Specifies the customer''s address. This address will appear on all sales documents for the customer.';
                    ApplicationArea = All;
                }
                field(City; Rec.City)
                {
                    ToolTip = 'Specifies the customer''s city.';
                    ApplicationArea = All;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    actions
    {
        area(Processing)
        {
            action(Dummy)
            {
                Caption = '';
                ApplicationArea = all;
                Enabled = false;
                trigger OnAction()
                begin

                end;
            }
        }
    }
}

With an empty caption, the action still technically appears in the action bar (you’ll see a tiny blank space), but it’s essentially invisible and non-functional. Most importantly, the Automate group now shows up and works correctly.

A Note on Deployment Speed

Erik noted during the video that since version 20, deploying to cloud sandboxes and uploading extensions has become noticeably slower than deploying to Docker containers locally. This is worth keeping in mind if you’re iterating on changes in a cloud sandbox environment.

Summary

The Power Automate integration in Business Central 20.2 is a great feature, but its appearance is subject to conditions that aren’t fully covered in the initial documentation. The most surprising requirement is that the page must have at least one AL-defined action for the Automate group to appear. For custom pages created without any actions — particularly those built with the Object Designer — this means the Automate button won’t show up at all.

The workaround is to add a dummy action with an empty caption and Enabled = false. It’s a bit of a hack, and Erik expressed hope that Microsoft would improve this behavior so that the Automate group appears regardless of whether other AL actions exist on the page. Until then, this simple trick gets the job done with minimal UI impact.

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