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Trying to better understand authentication and token lifetime

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Posted on by Mike2500

1,247 Super User 2024 Season 1

UserA creates simple flow that connects to Office 365 Outlook and SharePoint Online. Given that userA has to change their password every 90 days:

Will the Flow continue to function indefinately, even after the password changes?
Does the above answer change if the flow isn't used for a period of time?
Does MFA impact any of this?
What are the possible causes of connections with a status of "can't sign in, update password"

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v-xida-msft on at

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Hi @Mike2500,

For first question, if the password changes, a connection for flow will continue to function until the token expires. If the token expires, the user need to update their password for the flow to continue function.
For second question, if the time is not more than expire time, the flow will continue to function indefinitely.
For third question, yes, the MFA makes impact on this.
For forth question, the possible causes as below:
The user has changed password of the account.
The user has delete the connection in Microsoft Flow
You have created the connection, but you don’t provide an authentication for it.

More details about the token lifetime, please check the following document:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-configurable-token-lifetimes

More details about the MAF policy, please check the following document:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/multi-factor-authentication/multi-factor-authentication-how-it-works

Best regards,
Kris

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Mike2500 1,247 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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So, the connection will continue to function until the token expires. If the flow runs every day, then every day it is using its refresh token to get another access token. Since the default value of "Single-Factor Refresh Token Max Age" is "Until-revoked", and since the refresh token "will not be revoked on voluntary password resets", then the connection will continue to function indefinately? Or, if the flow sits for 90 days without running, then the refresh token will expire, and the connection will fail (90 days being the default value for "refresh token max inactive time"). Or, if the user's password expires, then the refresh token will be revoked, and the connection will fail.

I'm not sure what you meant by "yes, the MFA makes impact on this". Could you please clarify the impact of MFA?
You mentioned that the connection will fail if the user changes their password, though the token doc said that refresh tokens will not be revoked for voluntary password resets. Could you please clarify?

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vecerpa 786 on at

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Hi @Mike2500 have you received some answer to aditional questions you asked? Or did you find answer by yourself?
Hope @v-xida-msft have some answers.

P.

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Mike2500 1,247 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Sorry, no new info.

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vecerpa 786 on at

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Is there any update regarding this topic? I am still looking for some answer to this 90 day lifetime.

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Toasteroven 131 on at

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BUMP.

I have a flow that runs when a user presses a button in a PowerApp, however after 90 days of not using the app they get an Unauthorised error due to the access token being revoked. I then have to manually re-add the connection.

Would really like some insight from staff into OPs follow up question

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vecerpa 786 on at

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Hello @Toasteroven, I still had no chance to find out how to solve this except I am using for all Flows service account. Just one service account that is refreshing its connection each time it runs.

But if you have only few Flows, you are still in riskt that token will expire.

P.

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Toasteroven 131 on at

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I have one flow, but about 30 users that use it. If any one of them doesn't use it for 90 days, their access token is revoked and they can no longer use it until I manually re-add their connection.

I am looking at setting the expiry time of tokens from 90 days to indefinite. Are there any security concerns with doing this?

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