Re: Business continuity when someone leaves

shawn_fielding · ‎08-24-2022

Hi all,

We just had someone who created quite a few flows that are vital to our business processes. Luckily we had the foresight to add additional owners to her flows, but all of her flows are breaking due to connections being used. I have updated the first one, step by step, but realize that all her flows will have to go through this process. So, this is a multifaceted question.

1. Immediate need: Is there a way to change all connections for all steps in a flow?

2. Does anyone have a business continuity plan or best practices for when a person leaves? These steps could be when the flows are created (make two owners or a generalized account or whatever). But equally important, do you have and exit process for flows (and PowerApps applications) before/when someone leaves?

Shawn

annajhaveri · ‎08-24-2022

@shawn_fielding the flows should be shared with service account as co-owner and the flow should be using service account in the all connections that flow requires, if these two things are done then even if the user leaves the organization and user's account is deactivated, the flow will still work.

References:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/General-Power-Automate/What-happens-when-user-leaves-organisatio...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/troubleshoot/power-platform/power-automate/manage-orphan-flow-when-...

https://sharepains.com/2020/12/10/how-to-handle-leavers-in-power-automate/

Regards,
Anna Jhaveri

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shawn_fielding · ‎08-25-2022

The problem with that, as far as I can tell, is the fact that even as a co-owner, I cannot assign connections to another owner, correct? Therefore, let's say IT owns a service account. I share my flow with the service account making them an owner, but then I would need IT to log in as that account and change all of the connections. I can't do that just as a normal user. There's no way that that is the solution, because the IT burden for all of the flows across the organization would be huge to manually go in and do that. What am I missing?

Cliffferton · ‎06-01-2023

@shawn_fieldingdid you ever get a definite answer that you were correct and not missing anything, or was there a solution that you found that fixed this issue?

shawn_fielding · ‎06-01-2023

Nope. We have pretty much ignored the issue, but are dealing with it in exit interviews at this point. Very, very tenuous, but it is pretty much our only option.

Clifferton · ‎06-04-2023

It seems like the "solution" being pushed by Microsoft is to use the power platform Community of Excellence to basically crowd source the work of maintaining apps. This seems like it would lead to folks with very little experience or interest being dragged kicking and screaming into an app/flow ownership.

https://youtu.be/0zptiBppTNo

shawn_fielding · ‎06-05-2023

Yeah, I agree. We are going to put in strict governance for departments and individuals, opting in, basically saying that the department accepts the responsibility of maintaining flows and individuals will include a manager, their division group, IT group, and possibly a backup/collaborator. Lots of owners. The connection is still a major problem though.