Forum Discussion
Best practices for Power Automate with service account
I can't see how MS can force us to use a the Per Flow licensing model instead of a Service account that has a Per User license assigned. In our scenario we create a few account with an E3/5 license and assigne them a Per User license. The accounts are then used by a select few to create any Automated or Scheduled Flows that have business impact. Flows that are for pure personal productivity, are created by the end users personal account. The hard part is keeping up with what flows have business impact vs personal flows.
Hi jjdev-nz
We do exactly the same thing in our organisation. We created a normal user (not a service account in MS terms) equiped him with an E3, dynamics 365 license (for premium connectors) and a PA per user license. Then we migrated all business critical flows to this user and share the individual flow with the devs/owner of the flows for ajdustments. The user who owns the flows is managed centrally by a few users in the IT department.
This user only owns flows in a dedicated productiv environment where only he and the IT department is able to create any flows or apps.For power apps we use additonally power apps per app license.
We came up with this solution/idea after reading the following part of "Establish an environment strategy" documentation from microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/adoption/environment-strategy
But I'm still confused if we are acting correlty in the boundarys of microsofts power automate licensing.
Hi LimeLeaf
MS is not very clear on the licensing and it's obvious from all the comments on the web.
I understand the reasoning for using a Per Flow license for business-critical Flows that uses Premium connectors that are triggered by many users and frequently per day. Flows that have a Per Flow license have an API limit of 250k per day. But if a Flow with Premium connectors is only triggered a few times in a day, then it's not cost effective to use a Per Flow license.
Regardless if one uses a Per User license connected to a real user or service account, that account can only do 40k API calls per day. Any automated or scheduled Flows always runs in the context of the Flow owner/creator. So if we are using an Per User license connected to a real user or service account, what is the difference, we are paying for the license and using it within the API limits of the day.
If you have a Flow that is exceeding 40k API calls, then its time to look at getting a Per Flow license in my opinion.
Yep, I have the same understanding here. As far as the flows are triggered in a moderate way and in sum they don't exceed a limit of 40k api calls per day and user there shouldn't be licensing issue.
So only for API intensive flows there should be used a per flow license.
To be honest it would be great to have a recommendation in the microsoft documentation that points into this direction.
- Just sharing this from LinkedIn - remember it is a draft document https://www.linkedin.com/posts/priyakodukula_licensing-flows-using-service-accounts-in-activity-6914470425523617792-41tC/
- I'm with you here. I don't think that Microsoft is forcing anybody.
The wording on their post is "[if] the service account is used by many users... it is recommended to assign a per flow license to the flow to ensure any new users adding to the account are automatically compliant."
"Recommended" and "required" have vastly different implications.- The licensing FAQ's have been updated in the last few days https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/power-automate-licensing/faqs#i-have-multiple-flows-running-under-a-shared-service-account-what-licenses-do-i-need
- In this updated document - Microsoft is thinking - that the service account is a shared account with many users that they have access to it. In reality, only the IT has access to the service account. What about that? I am really not happy with this confusing licensing model and each person with which we talking about that topic has another opinion.
