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Issue with shared Desktop Flow that is started by a shared Cloud Flow

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Posted on by Saibot861

Hello Power Automate Community,

I have an issue with a shared Desktop Flow that is started by a shared Cloud Flow and need some guidance on how to solve it. So I recently built a Desktop Flow that I shared with a user. When the user navigates to the "shared with me" section in the Power Automate Desktop app and runs the flow, the user is prompted to confirm his/her own credentials, meaning connection/ID used e.g. for SharePoint actions, Outlook actions etc. - when the user clicks the OK button the flow is executed without any errors - all good. But since the goal is to completely automate this process without having to start the PAD flow manually, I also built a small Power Automate Cloud Flow that starts with the trigger "When a new e-mail arrives" and once it recognizes a specific e-mail, it starts the said Desktop Flow. I also shared this Cloud Flow with the same user. The Cloud Flow does what it is supposed to do and starts the Desktop Flow. However, the Desktop Flow runs on an error saying that "Access to some desktop flow connectors in desktop flow with id [...] wasn't validated. Verify the following connections: [...] sharepointonline [...] office365 [...]."

The reason is probably that when automatically starting a Desktop Flow via Cloud Flow the user is no longer prompted to confirm his/her own credentials/connections used before the Desktop Flow is executed, so the Desktop Flow simply tries to use my connection that was used when I initially built the flow.

Is there any known workaround for this? Since I have to share this process with various co-workers, I am looking for a way to simply actually just share the flow without having to copy and paste the PAD code, updating the connections used per user and without having to import the cloud flow for every single user individually to make it work.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Regards,

Tobias

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Building flows

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trice602 15,402 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi,

I think an easy work around here is to just have the cloud flow run when the email arrives and this whole process runs under your connection strings or your service accounts; the user triggering the flow is just sending the email.

I have a handful of flows like this where someone can launch a desktop flow by just sending me an email. It's an easy and effective work around.

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Always glad to help! 💯💯💯💯💯

Tom

Follow me on LinkedIn - Thomas Rice, PMP | LinkedIn

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Saibot861 29 on at

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Hi @trice602,

Thank you for your feedback. That is a very interesting workaround, however, I'm afraid I will not be able to apply it to my scenario. The idea is to automatically process shipping documents e-mails that each user receives in their personal Outlook inbox. So whenever a certain e-mail is received, the resp. cloud flow should trigger the desktop flow and process the e-mails in each user's Outlook inbox.

The goal is to have a group of 10 to 11 staff members use this Power Automate Flow to process the shipping documents e-mails that they receive daily. So I designed both the cloud and desktop flows and now would like to share them with the group. But much to my surprise, it seems that when a shared desktop flow is started by a shared cloud flow, it does not use/ask for the individual user's SharePoint and Outlook connectors, which it does when you start the shared desktop flow manually, but instead tries to use my personal SharePoint and Outlook connectors.

Last year I already built a first version of the same desktop flow, but was not able to share it with the group via make.powerautomate.com due to lack of a premium license. So I had to align with each user separately to have them copy & paste the PAD code into a newly created desktop flow and then have them replace my SharePoint and Outlook connectors with their own, which took about 1.5 hours per user. Afterwards we manually imported the cloud flow for each user, which also took a bit of time - I would really, really like to avoid doing it that way again, as it just takes too much time and monitoring the flow's performance via make.powerautomate.com is simply not possible this way. Also, updating an existiting flow this way is an absolute nightmare :D.

I hope there is some way to still share both the cloud and desktop flows with the group, but have the desktop flow use each individual user's connectors.

Thanks & regards

Tobi

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trice602 15,402 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi,

Understood. I was thinking those individual users and their direct emails could just be forwarded to a designed inbox which get routed into a folder and that launches the automation. So the don't really have to do anything, if the subject contains, from is, etc, forward email to:... which would trigger the automation.

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Always glad to help! 💯💯💯💯💯

Tom

Follow me on LinkedIn - Thomas Rice, PMP | LinkedIn

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trice602 15,402 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hey there!

I am following up on this post issue with shared desktop flow that is started by a shared cloud flow in this category building flows from 02/04/2025. I know the post is a little older, but it is a common question here so wanted to take a moment and follow-up. I see there have been 3 replies and 1 likes and asking if your question has been answered. If so, please help the community out by completing one or more of the following actions! Thanks in advance!

Easy as 1-2-3 ‼️💯⭐😎🆒🙏

1) Mark a reply as a verified answer - this is essential, and it helps others with the same general question find this thread. ✅

2) You can also mark one of more replies as a verified answer. Please take a moment and give the author credit for volunteering their time. ✌️

3) Like one or more replies. Kudos always greatly appreciated! 👍

Pro tip: if you found your own solution or workaround, feel free to add a reply to your own post and mark it as the solution too! The goal is to get this thread marked with a verified answer by anyone that finds one or more replies helpful!

Again, thanks in advance for reading and responding, always glad to help! Tom 💯💯💯💯💯

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trice602 15,402 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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If I can help with anything else please let me know or tag me in a future post, I enjoy reading and answering questions. Always glad to help! Tom 💯💯💯💯💯

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Saibot861 29 on at

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Hi @trice602,

Thanks for following up on this topic. I did find a workaround for this issue. Even if it is a bit tedious, it is still feasible. The goal is to share a cloud flow that will automatically start a shared desktop flow using the individual Outlook365 and Sharepointonline connection references of each user. I achieved this by doing the following:

1.) Build the Power Automate Desktop Flow

2.) Build the Power Automate Cloud Flow to start the Desktop Flow

3.) Ask each user for their individual Outlook365 and Sharepointonline connection references ("DisplayName", "InternalId", "LogicalName", "ConnectionName", "ConnectionDisplayName" - To simplify this process I build a two step Power Automate Desktop Flow with the actions "get e-mail (V3)" and "create file" (on Sharepoint) which I sent to every user and asked them to select their individual connection references and then have them send the code including their personal references back to me via copy & paste - takes 2-3 minutes per user.

4.) Open the Power Automate Desktop Flow code in a text editor and search&replace each of the above listed connection references with the individual user's connections references (one separate desktop flow per user)

5.) Edit the Power Automate Cloud Flow, select each user's unique desktop flow, save and export each user's cloud flow.

6.) Share the Power Automate Desktop Flow with each user via make.powerautomate.com

7.) Have each user import their own Power Automate Cloud Flow via make.powerautomate.com

8.) This way the cloud flow will automatically trigger each user's unique desktop flow using their individual connection references and since I have shared each desktop flow with the individual user via make.powerautomate.com, I am still able to monitor the performance for each desktop flow that I built and check for potential errors.

Not the perfect solution and I wish Microsoft would offer an easier solution for this kind of scenario, but at least I found a workaround :).

Regards

Tobias

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trice602 15,402 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Great to hear! Tom

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