Office 365 E3 License + Flow Per Plan Question

[Eagerboy]

Hi all,

Looking at the current licensing guide on standalone and seeded licenses for both PowerApps and Power Automate, I something would like to clear up.

If let say I am using O365 E3 license, I can use PowerApps with standard connectors (excel, sharepoint, etc). I will have no access to on-prem gateway and premium connectors. But if I also subscribe standalone Power Automate Flow per plan, it will entitled me to use premium connectors and on-prem gateway.

The license that I have is O365 E3 + Standalone Power Automate Flow Per Plan. So here's the questions:

1. PowerApp canvas app that directly connected to a premium connector will not work, even if I have the Flow per plan that will enable gateway and premium connectors usage. Is that correct?

2. PowerApp canvas app that trigger Flow, that is connected to on-prem gateway and premium connectors will be working just fine. It just a matter of fact that all the read, update actions will need to go through the Flow now instead of direct connection from the app. Is that correct?

Would like to double check my understanding before presenting it to the board. Appreciate your help.

[Pstork1]

Subscribing to the Power Automate standalone Flow plan will give you access to the On-Prem gateway and premium connectors for Flow.  But it won't provide access to those premium features in Power Apps.

1) Correct - you only have access to premium in Power Automate based on that licensing

2) Correct to a point - The problem will be that flows initiated by a Power App will run in the context of the user.  That user will then need a Power Automate standalone plan to use the premium features.  So you'll need a Power Automate standalone plan for every user.  At that point you will probably be better off getting a Power Apps plan, which includes licensing for Power Automate flows that are in the context of the Power Apps being created.

[SNKSP02]

@Pstork1 

Thanks a lot for your sharing. Cheers!

[Eagerboy]

@Pstork1 

So I have done some testing on the concept. Apparently it does not work the way I thought it will be.

The license that I have is O365 E3 trial + Power Automate Flow per user trial.

1. Created a Flow A with my E3 user ID, connect it to CDS, and successfully saved.

2. Created a canvas with E3 user ID, use a button to trigger Flow A.

3. I assume my E3 user able to access the canvas app, and click on the button. However, upon accessing the app, PowerApps is requesting me to start a trial, even though my canvas has no direct connection to the premium connector. Apparently the standalone flow plan is not meant to use within PowerApps context?

[Pstork1]

Are both your trial licenses in the same tenant and based on the same email address? If they are, then the Flow license should cover you when you start the flow from the Power App.  But other people will end up with this experience if they don't also have a Flow license.

[v-xida-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Eagerboy ,

For your first question, if you owns a Power Automate Flow Per Plan, you could only create a connection to the On-premises Connector or premium connector from your Power Automate side. When you want to create a connection to the On-premises Connector or premium connector from a canvas app, it would not use the Power Automate Flow Per Plan to create a connection, instead, it would still ask you to use a PowerApps Per App Plan or Per User plan to access On-premises Connector or premium connector.

For your second question, when these end users run the shared app including flow connection, they would be prompted to provide their own credential to create connection to these connections on which the flow relies. The PowerApps app would check if the current user have proper PowerApps license rather than Power Automate license to access these connections within the flow.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/share-app-resources#flows

So if you want to fire a flow including On-premises connection or premium connector from your canvas app, you still need to have proper PowerApps license to access these On-premises connection or premium connector.

Best regards,

[Eagerboy]

@Pstork1 

Many thanks for the reply.

Yes, both the trials are within the same tenant and user ID. Actually from the licensing guide that MSFT published, my understanding is aligned with you, where O365 users can buy standalone flow per plan, and use O365 canvas app to trigger the flow with on-prem gateway and premium connectors.

But my testing is telling me otherwise. When a canvas app is embedded with the flow with premium connector, the connection will be automatically added into my app (refer below screenshot), which will prompt my E3 user ID to start a trial when I run the app.

[Eagerboy]

@v-xida-msft 

Many thanks for the information. What I have tested are fit with your explanation.

May I further ask a question regarding the license guide? What it means on the highlighted part? I am wondering, if I bought a standalone power automate license, but still cannot use the features on the O365 E3 licensed canvas app, why is it included in the O365 license guide here.

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @Eagerboy ,

The Office 365 license make sure you could use these Office 365 connectors (e.g. Office 365 Outlook, Office 365 Users, SharePoint, OneDrive, ....) within Power Apps or Power Automate.

In addition, some Office 365 license includes parts of PowerApps features, so if you own a specific Office 365 license, you could access PowerApps features (not all features).

If you only own a Power Automate license without Office 365 license, you could use Power Automate features. But when you create a connection to Office 365 related connectors (e.g. Office 365 Outlook, Office 365 Users, SharePoint, OneDrive, ....) from your flow, you would still be prompted to own a proper Office 365 license to access Office 365 related connectors.

Please note that, for these connectors in Power Apps or Power Automate, you may need to provide corresponding license to access these connectors, which is not related to Power Automate license. Power Automate license is a standalone license for Power Automate rather than these connectors supported in Power Automate.

Best regards,

[Pstork1]

You may want to open a support call on this.  I suspect its a side effect of being on two trials.  I've seen some issues with this in other contexts too.  But your licensing should cover the use of the flow in the embedded app too.  As I said, every user will have to have licensing for the flow.  But since you do you shouldn't see a problem at this point.  For some reason its not picking up your other license and applying it when it should.