Power Automate Connection References and Best Practices

What are connection references?

Connection References are used in Power Automate Flows to read, update, create, or delete data in other platforms and services, such as the Dataverse, SharePoint, Excel, Outlook and even non-Microsoft services such as Twilio. Each Connection reference stores metadata, which define which connector and connection is needed, but do not contain credentials. The same connection can have multiple connection references and one flow can have several connection references for one connector.

Here are some quick facts about connection references:

• Connection References don’t contain any credentials, just a reference to them (the Connection).
• Admins and Developers can create a Connection Reference and tie it to a specific Connection.
• A Connection Reference can be re-used in multiple Power Automate Flows.
• Several Connection References can use the same Connection.
• If you need to update the Connection tied to a Connection Reference, it updates all Flows that are utilizing the same Connection Reference.
• Each Flow can use several Connection References for different Connectors. 

Best practices for managing Connection References

Here are some best practices for managing connection references:

• Create a common solution with all the Connection References
• Create a new Connection Reference for each developer that share the same service principal Connection or have a process in place to check for consistent use of a Connection Reference (when a service principal Connection is not possible). This is due to the fact that you cannot share Connection References with multiple developers.
• Share ALL Connections with your DevOps Service Principal(s), so that your DevOps pipelines can deploy and activate the Flows upon solution import.
• Where possible, do not use a personal user account when creating a Connection. Instead, use a service principal if it’s allowed (for example, on Dataverse Connections). A Connection Reference service principal is a best practice for avoiding permissions issues in Power Automate Flows.

What is a service principal?

A service principal is tied to an Azure App Registration and can be used to connect to your re-usable Dataverse Connection Reference for Power Automate Flows. The benefits of using a Service Principal vs User credentials are:

– Service principals aren’t tied to users that can be deactivated due to departure
– They ensure flows are running with consistent security privileges
– The password for it can be monitored for password expirations and proactively updated

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