Answered

What's the advantage of sharing a flow with a Library or List?

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by sambg

Hi All,

I currently share all of our flows with a small number of admins. I'm looking at handing ownership of the flows to the departments they've been created for. I set up sharing with other admins by creating a group and adding them in. The group also owns an associated SharePoint site.

Today, I read on this page Share a cloud flow - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn:

Use a list when the flow is connected to SharePoint, and use a group in all other cases.

There's no other context and I think I may be missing something so can anyone tell me why sharing with a list is best practice? What advantages does that have over sharing with a group?

Thanks.

Categories:

General topics

I have the same question (0)

All responses (3)

Answers (0)

Suggested answer

mmbr1606 14,605 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

Like (1)

Report
hey

i have never shared a flow with a list, cause all flows i built are in a service account.

but talking about the article i think this is the ke advantage:

Add a list as a co-owner

You can add SharePoint lists as co-owners of a cloud flow so that everyone who has edit access to the list automatically gets edit access to the flow. After the flow is shared, you can simply distribute a link to it. More information: Training: Create and set up a SharePoint list

Use a list when the flow is connected to SharePoint, and use a group in all other cases.

Important

SharePoint users must have Edit permission or be a member of the Members or Owners group to run flows in SharePoint.

Adding a list as a co-owner is not available in GCC High and DoD tenants.

if my answer helped please mark as verified,

cheers

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Suggested answer

David_MA 12,982 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

Like (1)

Report

You would share a flow with a list or library when you have a flow that is triggered for selected item or selected file. These flows are like manually triggered flows, but they can only be created in the default environment. This allows users to initiate the flow only when needed on a particular item:

If you want anyone who has access to the list to be able to run the flow, you need to share it with the list.

I haven't watched this video by Shane Young in quite some time, but he does a good job of explaining things in his video. This one will show you how the "For a selected item" trigger works and he might show sharing it with the list: https://youtu.be/8MSGwXazZRM?si=2a8qmd0AZh2H1lRp

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
sambg 37 on at

Like (0)

Report

Thanks @David_MA.

I wasn't aware of being able to trigger a flow directly from within SharePoint but it was trivial to set up a proof of concept from watching Shane's video.

I'm running nothing I can use this for at the moment but I can see places it can be useful.

Thanks, sam.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No