How can I access SharePoint using a Service Principal

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Posted on by NPrice99

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I am trying to use a service principal to access SharePoint list how can I do this ?

My security team do not want me to use a service account as they are considered insecure.

Thanks

Nigel

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Using connectors

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eric-cheng 5,171 on at

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Hi @NigelP ,

In Power Automate, not all connectors support service principals.

To work around this, you could use the HTTP connector (premium connector) which supports this to csll SharePoint APIs. Understand that this will be more difficult.

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NPrice99 1,302 on at

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Hi @eric-cheng as this uses Service Principals how does the licencing work ?
a) So User A in PowerApps call a flow which uses this PowerAutomate Flow with the HTTP request. What licence does user A require ?
b) A user calls the flow directly, again with the HTTP Request which uses the Service Principal. What licence does this user require ?

Regards

Nigel

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Ghost55811 20 on at

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Did you ever find an answer to your question. I am looking at a similar problem now and as far as I can figure it out since the flow has a HTTP trigger, Power automate treats it like a Automated flow. This would mean that the flow owner license is used by all flow runs.

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MattMMeyer 6 on at

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I know this is an old one, but I hope this helps.
The Service Principal is an App in Entra ID. You grant it permissions to the API. It is not licensed per se. HOWEVER, in Microsoft Power Automate Licensing it states specifically that you are to license anyone that "benefits" from the flow.
Therefore, while the service principal is not licensed directly, anyone that benefits from the flow's work needs to be licensed.

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NdaLuz 31 on at

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I'm also trying to configure a service principal (application user) to access Dataverse and Sharepoint. Dataverse was easy, but I'm struggling a little with Sharepoint and Excel/Word. Do we still need to call the API "manually" (using HTTP requests instead of the Sharepoint connector)? Is there a better solution now?

The Sharepoint solution feels like a workaround (compared to the way it is done for Dataverse). Do we know whether Microsoft is planning on implementing the service principal/application user for Sharepoint/Excel/Word/Office365 soon?
If the only way is to use this workaround with SharePoint, is there such a workaround for Excel/Word/Office365?

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MattMMeyer 6 on at

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Please check out this video. I go over how to connect to SharePoint using User Principals, Graph API, and Custom Connectors.

Power Automate Using ONLY Service Principals

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