Problem Statement - While creating Power Automate we may face situation where connection reference for the Dataverse Connector missing and we could only see Connections. Moreover we dont see an option to add connection reference to the flow.
As we know Connection References are preferred over Connections for smooth deployment so lets figure out what could be the possible cause.
Lets create a sample cloud flow in our solution, here we can see Connection Reference available in the Dataverse connector.
Also, if we close the editor we can see Connection References box on the flow page. Yay !
Now, we have 2 components in the solution
i) Connection Reference
ii) Cloud Flow
Suppose, we need one more Cloud Flow with similar steps, as easy steps we go ahead and create a copy of the existing Power Automate.
Copy of Power Automate is added to My Flows, from where we add this to the Solution.
To Add, we navigate to our Solution and add existing cloud flow to the solution.
Now Solution contains 3 components, an additional flow(copy) is also added, which we can go ahead and make changes.
All seems so quick and easy till now, but let's realize what changes are seen due to copy action. If we open the Flow(copy) we can't see Connection References it only has Connections.
Even if we open the Flow(copy) in editor we could only see Connections, Connection Reference is missing and we don't see any option to add Connection Reference to the flow thereafter.
This is weird !
Now if we deploy this flow to the target instance we will have to manually update the connection post deployment.
So as a practice, avoid creating copy of the Flows from within the solution as it ends up converting Connection Reference to Connections.
Keep an eye on next article where we will see how can we fix the Flows to have Connection References instead of Connections.
Happy Learning, LET's SHARE !
