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How to identify a Power Apps user and assign certain rights referencing a SharePoint list directory

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Posted on by SI-24052054-0

My app, OnStart, checks the user's email, full name and EntraObjectId against a SharePoint list and stores his/her Role (a column in SP) in a variable that is then used to make certain controls in the app visible/usable based on Role.

I've used this system for years, but something now is not working. I have users that my app can't find in my SP list, neither using User().FullName, User().Email, nor User().EntraObjectID.

Can anyone tell me if there is a better method I can use and if Microsoft has changed something recently with the creation of user identities?

Thank you

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Vish WR 3,748 on at

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@SI-24052054-0

The most common cause right now is Guest vs Member account behaviour. If any of your affected users are guest accounts in the tenant, User().Email may return their external UPN rather than the email stored in your SharePoint list, and User().EntraObjectId may differ from what you expect depending on how the account was provisioned.

The second thing worth checking is whether your SharePoint list is storing emails in a Person column versus a plain Text column. If it is a Person column, do your lookup against the email property of that column like this:

LookUp(YourSPList, PersonColumn.Email = User().Email)

Rather than comparing against a text field directly.

Third — User().EntraObjectId is the most reliable identifier since it never changes even if someone's email or display name changes. If that is also failing, check whether the Object IDs stored in your SharePoint list were populated correctly and match exactly what Power Apps returns. A quick way to test is to add a temporary label in your app showing User().EntraObjectId and compare it manually against what is in the list for that user.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5427952/power-app-gallery-filter-by-logged-in-user-when-em

https://elliskarim.com/2025/01/27/powerapps-user-email-not-what-you-expect/

https://thedataversedev.com/blog/get-current-user-power-apps

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5427952/power-app-gallery-filter-by-logged-in-user-when-em

Vishnu WR

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11manish 3,333 on at

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Yes — identity behavior in Power Apps and Microsoft Entra ID has evolved, and older approaches based on User().Email or User().FullName are becoming less reliable due to aliases, guest accounts, hybrid identities, and synchronization changes.

The best modern approach is:

use User().EntraObjectId as the unique identifier

preferably move role management to Entra Security Groups or Dataverse security roles

avoid relying solely on email matching for authorization logic

because email addresses are no longer guaranteed to be stable or unique identity keys across all Microsoft identity scenarios.

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SI-24052054-0 7 on at

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Thank you, @11manish and @Vish WR, for clarifying this new standard. In the end, I was able to resolve with a combined approach: check text email, check UPN, check Person.Email, check EntraObjectID and pick whatever works! And it did work!... Unfortunately, not having admin rights over the system, I can't use Dataverse, Office groups, nor Entra groups (it would require me having to go through an admin every time I have to add or modify a user. Thanks again!

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