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Hi All,
I'm finding the scenario below harder than I think it should be and I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Please weigh-in with any insights.
Assume two environments in the same tenant: DEV (unmanaged solution environment) and TEST (managed):
In TEST, import solution and see where things start to break down...
When deploying to TEST:
The import process wants the user to associate the Connection References included in the solution with local connections. At this point, I would expect to be able to create a new connection using the SPN I setup in the environment, however, only user-based connections are displayed and only user-based connections can be created using the "+ New connection" button.
In a given environment, an admin is unable to create an SPN-based connection outside the context of a Flow. Prior to attempting a solution import I can't go into TEST, navigate to Data -> Connections -> "+ New connection" and create SPN-based connections that will then be associated with the Connection References.
Furthermore, I can't create a quick Flow in test to establish the two new environment-specific connections (e.g. "TEST SPN CDS Connection" and "TEST SPN CDS (current) Connection") and then go back to the solution import UI to refresh the list and choose one. Hitting refresh and they never show up.
Anyone from the engineering team that can shed some light on the expected deployment scenario here?
I found it hard to search for documentation as well as similar issues, perhaps because of the ambiguous terms "connector"/"connections".
Some documentation regarding desktop flows suggests that this is not doable through the GUI, but considering they have established GUI functionality for creating service principal connections from within power automate "studio", it is really strange (and confusing for users) they have not extended this to the connection section as well.
I would like this to be covered in this section of the documentation:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/create-connection-reference
I guess the only thing we can do is suggest improvements to the documentation for clarification.
There are some feedback from other people finding the documentation difficult to understand:
https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/powerapps-docs/issues/4248
But considering this was assigned to some author over a year ago and still left open, makes me think that there will be significant changes to this soon.. or its not a priority to document the more complex parts of the platform..
Let me know if you find one 🙂
I just stumbled over the same thing - still only possible to (pre-)create a connection to dataverse using SPN from within flow. And then fix the connection reference manually after deployment.
As this option is available in flow I'm just wondering why it is still not available through outside connection UI ... work in progress, ok, but 2 years?! either it's meant to be possible or not ...
This makes ALM so much more complicated - again manual intervention necessary.
Is there a pac command?!
Hi
I just stumbled about this behavior and, thanks to your article, am confirmed in my understanding of how Connection References work.
I think your solution is good. Of course I hope that Microsoft will come up with a solution how to set up a connection with a SPN during the solution import or in general without having to create a dummy flow. I personally don't like such tinkering in managed environments. They contradict the managed idea.
I calm myself with the knowledge that we are still working with "latest **bleep**" technologies here.
Is it as it is or do we things completely wrong?
Regards
Adrian
Small update... Instead of using my existing TEST environment I created a fresh TRIAL environment and basically followed the same steps above.
Some observations:
I assume that the TEST environment I had been using was in a state that the new connection reference/import process does not like... hopefully things get ironed out soon. It will be nice to have this process work without having to troubleshoot issues.
Also, existing ALM deployments from Azure DevOps are not in a good place due to connection references, but this has been well-documented in the forums.
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