Transition to List Flows as Admin V2 action from deprecated List Flows as Admin action on the Power Automate Management connector, along with associated APIs

[ChrisGarty]

Hi community! 

What's changing?

The List flows as Admin action on the Power Automate Management connector has been deprecated in favor of the List Flows as Admin (V2) action. The List Flows as Admin (V2) action can list all flows in an environment. The V2 action and its backing API has higher performance, since it returns only the identifying information about the flow. To accomplish this performance increase, the flow definition and some other metadata isn't returned. If the flow definition or additional metadata is needed, then a subsequent call can be made to the Get Flow as Admin action.

The Get-AdminFlow PowerShell cmdlet is also being updated to call the V2 List Flows API instead of the V1 List Flows API. This change will remove support for the CreatedBy filter.

The underlying V1 List Flows API is also being deprecated. The Center of Excellence (CoE) Starter Kit was updated to call the V2 List Flows API instead of the V1 List Flows API and that change was in the May 2023 release.

Why is this change happening?

The V2 API has higher performance, since it returns only the identifying information about the flow. The transition away from the V1 API is being made to minimize future disruptions to customer services.

How do I adjust to the change?

If you don't use the Center of Excellence (CoE) Starter Kit, the List flows as Admin action on the Power Automate Management connector, or the Get-AdminFlow PowerShell cmdlet, then you won't need to make any changes.

Connector actions: To take advantage of the increased performance of the V2 action and move off the V1 action, simply transition to using the List Flows as Admin (V2) action instead.

PowerShell: The Get-AdminFlow PowerShell cmdlet has been updated in version 2.0.165. You can update your copy of the Power Platform PowerShell cmdlets using Update-Module -Name "Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell". You can check your version using Get-Module -Name "Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell".

CoE Starter Kit: Update to the latest release of the CoE Starter Kit.

How do I find connector actions?

If you aren’t sure which flows might be calling the List flows as Admin action, then you can create a flow to list those flows. The List flows as Admin action has an operation ID of “ListFlowsInEnvironment”, so call the List Flows as Admin (V2) action, iterate over those flows calling the Get Flows as Admin action for each, parse JSON on the “actions” result, and then look for a “swaggerOperationId” of “ListFlowsInEnvironment”.

What's the timeline?

Connector design-time: Enforcement of the connector action deprecation at design-time is currently happening, so new flows will need to use the List Flows as Admin (V2) action. The design-time change finished rolling out to production environments 6/15.

Runtime: In August, we'll evaluate migration progress and start enforcing the deprecation at runtime, so that calls to the backing API may begin to fail at runtime. In time this will affect the old PowerShell cmdlet versions, old CoE Starter Kit versions, and calls to the deprecated List flows as Admin action.

What if I miss something?

We'll be watching usage levels of the deprecated List flows as Admin action, and its backing API, and we will reach out to customers that continue to have significant usage by the end of July.

Where can I read more?

You can read the latest guidance in the Administer environments and Power Automate resources documentation.

Who can I contact for more information?

Please ask any questions that you may have here and we'll get you answers. Thanks!

*** Update October 19, 2023 *** 

Thanks to community feedback, List Flows as Admin V2 + Get Flow as Admin APIs should now be functionally equivalent to List Flows as Admin V1 API.

List Flows as Admin V2 API is now:

- Working correctly in GCC

- Returning createdBy, createdTime, and lastModifiedTime

Get Flow as Admin API is now:

- Returning flow definition

Module Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell updated

We are going to start failing a small number of calls to the V1 List Flows as Admin API to encourage migration to the V2 API, the V2 action, and the latest PowerShell cmdlets module. For now, the failures will randomly occur on less than 1% of calls to the V1 API. 

This is the error that would be returned to calls to the API directly or via the connector:
The List Flows as Admin API is no longer supported. Please use the List Flows as Admin (V2) action
And this is the error message that will be returned from the PowerShell cmdlet:
The List Flows as Admin API used by this PowerShell cmdlet version is no longer supported. Please update to the latest PowerShell cmdlet using Update-Module

This change will roll out as RP/2310.3: Preview ~Oct 17, Canada ~Oct 24, Early regions ~Oct 25, Asia ~Oct 27, Europe ~Oct 31, North America ~Nov 2, GCC ~Nov 6.

If you encounter these error messages, then please take the remediation actions described.

*** Update February 1, 2024 *** 

The transition to the V2 API is progressing well and we continue to advance the process of randomly failing calls to the V1 List Flows as Admin API as a reminder to move to the V2 API. 

An update to fail 20% of calls is releasing now as RP/2401.4: Preview ~Jan 23, Canada ~Jan 30, Early regions ~Jan 31, Asia ~Feb 2, Europe ~Feb 6, North America ~Feb 8, GCC ~Feb 12.

An update to fail 40% of calls will release out as RP/2402.1: Preview ~Feb 6, Canada ~Feb 13, Early regions ~Feb 14, Asia ~Feb 16, Europe ~Feb 20, North America ~Feb 22, GCC ~Feb 26.

Updates to move the failure rates up are planned for the near future:

- 60%: Canada ~Feb 27, North America ~March 7

- 80%: Canada ~March 12, North America ~March 21

- 100%: Canada ~March 26, North America ~April 4

These dates are subject to change, but can be used as a guide. If you encounter the error messages detailed above, then please take the remediation actions described.

*** Update April 22, 2024 ***

Calls to the List flows as Admin API are now fully deprecated via the Power Automate Management connector or PowerShell. There is some direct use of the API from other clients, so we will begin failing those calls as well to complete full deprecation of the API by July 15th.

[Nazul]

Got it. Thanks.

[aafr]

@ChrisGarty  Thank you for the clarification.

[Nazul]

@ChrisGarty good and bad news.

Good news, looks like Get-AdminFlow is returning values for CreatedBy property.

Bad news, it does not return correct data for all flows. Example.

What's even weirder is that it is not the case for all flows, just some.

Can you help us here? Or should I try via Microsoft Support?

[max81]

@ChrisGarty Help!

My first flows are failing and the new action is not ready yet! 

[max81]

UPDATE: All my flows using that action are failing now. So our governance processes doesn't work anymore. 😞
Ticket was created yesterday, waiting for feedback.

I was - unluckily - able to reproduce missing creaqter information for some flows, mentioned by @Nazul 

[KollyJ]

Hi! We have same issue here... We use a template flow to send us mail with new Flow and Connector. but this tempalte flow doesn't work anymore with the V2 API.

And same behavior for our Flows Inventory. We need the CreatedBy and CreatedTime back in the V2 API for PowerShell... 

I already create a support ticket. but nothing new until today.

[KollyJ]

Good News, I installed the latest version of the module Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell (2.0.173) published 6 days ago. And now I have back the CreatedBy and CreatedTime attributes.

I will check if the List Admin Flows V2 (Power Automate flow) still have issue or not.

[max81]

@KollyJ : Please insure that you get the created information back for all flows!

In my case: only for a small percentage of our flows that information was missing

[KollyJ]

Yes information ok for all my flows (~900).

with the PowerShell module version 2.0.112 only a fews flows bring up without this information. but now with the version 2.0.173 all my flow (in PowerShell) come with good attributes.

[ChrisGarty]

@KollyJ , great to hear that! 

@max81 , thanks for your feedback and patience on this issue! 

[ChrisGarty]

Problem: The CreatedBy data is not appearing for customers on sovereign clouds like GCC. This is due to problems in those sovereign regions with the mechanism we use to store that the flow detail data from the List call. 

Status: In the next couple of days, we are expecting information from a partner team that affects our plan to remedy this for sovereign clouds and the timeline, so we haven't sent out a message center follow-up to MC624197 yet. We plan to send a follow-up communication shortly.

Thanks!

[max81]

@ChrisGarty : I'm using the flows in europe. So no sovereign cloud like GCC and I still miss for some flows the creator information.

[max81]

[UPDATE] My case is still open because I'm still missing some creator information. 😞

[max81]

[UPDATE] Info from Microsoft: Issue found and should be fixed with the next rollout. latest on 9/25. 

[ziv_dh]

@ChrisGarty, following our migration to the new v2 connector, we've run into an issue related to fetching flow definitions using the "get flow as admin" action.

Regrettably, the flow definition isn't consistently included in the response as per the guidance that suggests making a subsequent call to retrieve it.
What approaches or techniques should we employ to guarantee that we can consistently obtain the flow definition for all of our flows?

[DeeTronSEAM]

We've been using the "List flows as Admin (V2)" action in a flow created back in Jan. 2022.  But starting on Oct 7, the output of that flow action changed so that some of the flow entries in the AdminFlowWithoutDefinition array are missing properties/attributes (in their AdminFlowWithoutDefinitionProperties attribute).

E.g.: state, createdTime, lastModifiedTime

Note that:

1. both the attributes and the value are missing. It isn't just the value is null or blank/empty
2. only some of the flows' entries are afflicted with this problem. Most are fine.
3. we are not in a GCC tenancy, just plain-old boring USA business customer

Also, it appears that the problem is expanding as the number of flows missing this information has expanded each day the admin flow has run. As of today about 30% are missing the state, createdTime, and lastModifiedTime...up from 15% two days ago.  All flows that were missing the attributes on the 6th are included in the larger group that has missing attributes in today's run....so it might be an expanding problem, but could be random.  For now I'm not going to compare all five past runs to determine that because....

We've opened up a support ticket with Microsoft.  Since this seems to have happened before and was identified as a bug, our hope is MSFT will confirm and release a new fix for the latest apparition.

But in the meantime, posting here in case others are seeing the same problem...again.

++++

References: 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/flowmanagement/#list-flows-as-admin-(v2)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/flowmanagement/#resourcearray[adminflowwithoutdefinitio...

[ChrisGarty]

@ziv_dh , we had some discussions with partners and customers recently who highlighted that the List Flows as Admin V1 API was returning flow definitions. We were intentionally not returning flow definitions from the Get Flow as Admin API in the past, but we have a change rolling out now that will update the Get Flow as Admin API to include flow definitions, so that the combination of List Flows as Admin V2 + Get Flow as Admin is functionally equivalent to List Flows as Admin V1. With this change, an admin user doesn't have to add themselves as an owner on a flow so they can call the Get Flow API to get the definition, since instead they can simply call Get Flow as Admin to get the definition.

This change will roll out as RP/2310.3: Preview ~Oct 17, Canada ~Oct 24, Early regions ~Oct 25, Asia ~Oct 27, Europe ~Oct 31, North America ~Nov 2, GCC ~Nov 6.

[ChrisGarty]

We are going to start failing a small number of calls to the V1 List Flows as Admin API to encourage migration to the V2 API, the V2 action, and the latest PowerShell cmdlets module. For now, the failures will randomly occur on less than 1% of calls to the V1 API. 

This is the error that would be returned to calls to the API directly or via the connector:
The List Flows as Admin API is no longer supported. Please use the List Flows as Admin (V2) action
And this is the error message that will be returned from the PowerShell cmdlet:
The List Flows as Admin API used by this PowerShell cmdlet version is no longer supported. Please update to the latest PowerShell cmdlet using Update-Module

This change will roll out as RP/2310.3: Preview ~Oct 17, Canada ~Oct 24, Early regions ~Oct 25, Asia ~Oct 27, Europe ~Oct 31, North America ~Nov 2, GCC ~Nov 6.

If you encounter these error messages then please take the remediation actions described. If you do not have migration in place then a second call to the List Flows as Admin V1 API will likely succeed since only a small percentage of calls are failing as a warning.

[max81]

[Update] Today, I finally get all creator information back. So I can close my service ticket and start migrating to the new List Flows as Admin (V2) action.

My request to Microsoft for the next time:

• please make sure that new actions don't have any missing information

• a longer transition period is needed for such changes

• information transfer was really poor. The delayed message center news was bad. And questions in this thread were not answered quickly either

[ziv_dh]

@ChrisGarty thank you, this is great news. Can you please share the timeline for the new changes to take place? Is it in October or November? Also can you please don't deprecate the old functionality until the new one is generally available?