Solution Flows Turned Off after Import

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Posted on by ell10706

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Hi folks,

I have a solution with about 25 cloud flows. After import, a majority of these flows that have Child Flows are turned off and return the dreaded "ChildFlowNeverPublished" error after I try to turn them on.

I should note that some of my child flows make circular references (i.e. Child Flow A references Child Flow B, which can also reference Child Flow A.), which I suspect might be contributing here.

I have tried:

Recreating every flow directly within the solution
Ensuring all Connection References are owned by the same user who owns the flows and other solution objects
Editing each flow that has child flow(s), switching the Run a Child Flow action(s) to use an already-activated flow, saving the flow, and turning it on
- This works, but is extremely tedious, adds unmanaged layers, and defeats the purpose of automating things in the first place.

Anyone have any ideas? Thank you in advance!

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Governance & administering

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ChrisPiasecki 6,424 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @ell10706,

How are you deploying the solution flows? Are you using a service principal or service account to deploy?

If using a service account, you need to ensure that the account owns all Connections in the target environment associated with the Connection References used by the flow.

If deploying using a service principal, then the Connections in the target environment must be shared with the service principal.

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ell10706 112 on at

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@ChrisPiasecki
I am using a service account.

Yes, the service account owns all solution objects, including Connection References.

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Parvez Ghumra 1,579 Moderator on at

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@ell10706 The "ChildFlowNeverPublished" is a problem I've also experienced. I believe the problem is that the Flow activation logic within the solution import algorithm is internally unable to determine the correct sequence in which the Cloud Flows should be activated to avoid this error.

I would firstly suggest that you resolve your circular dependencies between flows, even if that means rebuilding the logic of your Cloud Flows.

Are you using source control and automated builds and deployments using either Azure DevOps or GitHub? If so, I would suggest setting up deployment settings file to automatically wire up connection references from your solutions to the corresponding connections in each target environment: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/alm/conn-ref-env-variables-build-tools. Note that you will need to manually created your Connections for each unique connector you're each in each target environment using the Service Account.

Finally, and this is something I think I need to look into for my project too, I would suggest you build your own custom deployment logic to turn on the Cloud Flows flows in the correct sequence - Child Flows first and then all other Flows. This can be a script that is executed after you import/upgrade/update the managed solutions in each target envrironment

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ell10706 112 on at

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Thanks for the detailed feedback, @parvezghumra. This topic is sparsely detailed on the web 😞

I did end up removing the circular logic, which allowed me to turn on all my flows. I did have to note down the proper order in which to turn them on (curious, why are some of them still off? I can turn on every flow without issue now), which I'll take your suggestion for and turn this into a script that I can run after every import.

I'm not using any CI/CD pipelines yet but I'm moving in that direction, so I'll keep this in mind.

Thanks again!

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Parvez Ghumra 1,579 Moderator on at

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@ell10706 I guess the only remaining issue potentially causing your Cloud Flows to be turned off would be the lack of Connection Reference resolution to connections. The approach I suggested in my previous comment with deployment settings files, will resolve this I believe

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