Update Client Secret for Service Principal

[NielsL]

Hi, 

We are using a Service Principal for all of our background flows, as suggested here by @DavidYack. 

Is it possible to update the client secret for the service principal somewhere, e.g. when it expires or is reset?

It does not seem possible to update the Service Principal connection details from the Connection Details screen. When you hit the Switch Account button nothing happens:

[skyovi]

@NielsL  Are flows are failing if the client secret is expired?  

I am also looking for a solution for this.  what is the impact to existing running flows if the client secret is expired and don't reconfigure the connection?

[NielsL]

@skyovi I don't know as we are not at that point - yet. 

The case is, that we need to reset the password for the Service Principal, as I would like to use that account for the some other connectors where you need to login. However, I'm not sure if resetting the password will also reset the client secret. 

Moreover, I'm not sure when the client secret actually expires. I have no idea if an expired client secret will break all flows - but I would be nice to be prepared. 

[NewcombR]

Go to the azure portal and open the app registration.  You should be able to see the expiration date on the secret.

if your secret is expired and you need to create a new one, there is an option to have it never expire.

[NielsL]

Thanks for the input @NewcombR. That could definitely by a solution.

I'm just wondering what to do if it is not viable to have it never expire for security reasons. At some point you would then need to update the client secret in Power Automate. Otherwise, you would probably have to create a new service principal and update the connection for all the the affected flows - which seems like a lot of unnecessary work. 

[NielsL]

The client secret for our service principal expired a few weeks ago - and no one was notified about this. So that meant that all flows stopped working. 

According to Microsoft Support, there is now way of updating the client secret of an connection reference (service principal) in Power Automate, so we had to create a new connection Rcference from scratch and connect using a service principal, where we could enter the new client secret. 

However, that also meant that we had to manually update each step in each flow with the new connection reference. 

Has anyone else experience this - and is there really now better way to work with service principals in Power Automate other than not having an expiration date for the client secret?

E.g. can you use PowerShell to do some of this stuff?

[eric-cheng]

Hi @NielsL ,

It is no longer possible to create a non expiring client secret.

You can use Powershell or Azure CLI.  Here is a guide, scroll down a bit to after the app registration is created.

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[NielsL]

Thanks @eric-cheng.

I also just came across this new blog post by Jason Fritts on how to Extend AAD Service Principal Client Secret Expiration using Azure Az PowerShell module.

I will test these options with our global admins to see if they work. 

[R4isin]

Hello,

I know that there has been no response for 2 years, but I have a small remark here.

Maybe it's just a vocabulary error between "Connection" and "Connection Reference," but you should not create a new "Connection Reference" but rather a new "Connection." Then, you need to update the Dataverse "Connection Reference" to use the newly created "Connection" (you can do it via the solution itself without creating an unmanaged layout).

This allows you to make the change without a release (as a new "Connection Reference" implies a new component in the solution). Moreover, there is no need to update the flows (again, we avoid a new release here). However, I'm not sure if you should do an "Off" to "On" for the flows.

Kind regards,

[Nublado]

Hi all,

We've gone through the same issue and we do not advise any company who is seriously thinking about their security aspects to relax passwords/secrets expiration dates and make it never expiry. Even if this was possible it's never recommended.

Therefore you should rather go for a different approach. We've found a solution/workaround -

1. Create a new Cloud Flow and add any Dataverse action into it. You will notice that under  My Connections there will be your Invalid Connection there:

2. Click on Invalid One which is using Service Principal and then you should see a screen with already pre-populated values for the Tenant, Client ID just without Client Secret and Connection Name. You can set any meaningful name depending on your secrets expiration strategy - e.g. "Connector Name - Q1 YYYY".

3. This will create a new Connection and your Connection Reference used in you flows will start using that one moving forward. 

[NoraMoller]

Hi, 

We are struggling with the same issue. Our secret is about to expire, and we have created a new one. I am having issues changing the current secret with the newly created. Do I have to wait for the secret to expire in order to do this approach? 

I've created a connection, but it doesn't show up when I'm trying to change the connection reference in the flows. It asks me to create a new connection reference to every flow in our system. If I do this, is it ok to use the same credentials? 

Would a solution be to create a new app user with a new ID or is this unnecessary? I am confused 😞 

[PJT1]

Yours is the only solution I have found for this issue.

As of March 2024, upon logging into Power Automate, you get notified that some of your connections have expired secrets/passwords, and you can be taken to a page that shows which connections have connection issues. For regular accounts, you can click Change Password (or something similar to that) and you can log in to update the password for that account (using Microsoft AD/Azure accounts it was an SSO experience for us). However, for Client App registrations, clicking the Change Password or Fix This Connection links will pop up the SSO window, and then that window will immediately close. And that's it. It doesn't fix the connection, it gives no indication that there was an error trying to "sign in", nothing. Microsoft appears to not have implemented any way to just change the secret there on that page in any way, nor have any instructions.

Nublado's solution is the only way that appears to work.