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Licensing for Premium Connectors

Iron Contributor

I'm trying to make sense of this page and need help. If I want to use a "premium connector" in a specific flow (ex. Salesforce.com) - does only the author of the flow need to be on Flow Plan1/2 OR does both the author and every user of that specific flow need to have that?

 

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/

9 Replies
best response confirmed by Ryan Stone (Iron Contributor)
Solution

Ryan,

 

   Both the app creator and consumer will need to have a P1 or P2 license.

@Ryan Stone, what @BrianTJackett says is incorrect. Only the maker has to get Flow plan 1/2. The rest of the company can use the Flow.

 

It's not the most straightforward messaging, but you only need P1 or P2 for the maker.

@Daniel Laskewitz I'm checking around internally for verification. The latest threads I've seen have some nuance to them.  The most straightforward answer I see is that whichever user / account is used for the connection to the Premium Connector requires the Plan 1 / 2 license.  Not simply a matter of the author vs. flow executor.

 

If User A authors a flow and uses their own credentials (User A) for the connection and then User B uses the flow (still with User A credentials tied to the connection for Premium Connector) then only User A needs a Plan 1 / 2 license.

 

If however User A authors a flow and User B uses their own credentials in the connection for Premium Connector then User B needs to have a Plan 1 / 2 license.

 

Hoping to get someone from Flow PG to comment / verify on here, stay tuned.

 

Correct! In my answer, assumption was made that the maker would connect to the premium connector.

I frequently create flows under a service account, connect to a premium connector with that service account (which has P1/P2) and then I use the Flow in different places (sometimes PowerApps, sometimes the Flow runs on the "SharePoint - When an item is created" trigger, etc).

Use of "service accounts" in many platform integrations can bring challenges in terms of security management and compliance with licensing agreements with various software vendors. Always use caution when recommending/implementing this in platform projects to avoid to expose your client to risks. 

Also when a user will want to use a premium connector configured by admins, he will be asked to authenticate to connect to the other service (e.g. Sales Force, Service Now, etc, …) Not sure IT Admin will want to share service accounts credentials.  

This continues to be very murky and unclear.  For IT managed automation scenarios, I have abandoned Flow for these reasons and switched almost completely to Azure Logic Apps.  There it is very clear and feels more like an enterprise solution (even though both use the same underlying engine).

@Daniel Laskewitz 

If I read the following article it seems like the users are the ones that has to have the P1 or P2 license, not the maker?

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-Retirement-Blog/UPDATED-Updates-to-Microsoft-Flow-and-...

 

image.png

 I have a look at the page @avsrot is sharing


@avsrot wrote:

avsrot_0-1590393104839.png

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/community/powerplatformlicensingforcitizendeveloper#p...

@Niclas Carlsson 


In addition to this, I found this chapter very helpful

Flow Licensing guidance

  1. Use Standard connectors in Office 365 licenses when possible in all cases.

  2. For Automated Triggers - buy a full license for the Flow Owner (Flow Bundle or User) and watch number of runs in case additional API run capacity needs to be purchased. A goal here is to potentially limit the requires licenses to one or two at most.

  3. For Instant Triggers - buy a full license for each user that will invoke the specific flow if it requires a connector not included with the seeded applications (Office 365, Dynamics) or is premium. The choice point of per user versus Bundle flow will be the cost per flow. This can be the more complex decision as considerations must be made against the cost per user running up against the cost for Flow Bundles which start at 5 and increment by 1.

  4. In the case of the Power Apps Trigger (a type of Instant Trigger) - the most common Instant Trigger is the Power Apps trigger, but any Power App that calls a Power Apps Trigger must have premium license for the premium connector used in the Flow and the Power Apps premium license for the end user includes premium flows used as part of that Power App. In this particular case additional purchases of flow licensing are not necessary, since it must be included in the Power Apps premium license.

Therefore a premium licence is required for each user that triggers a "for selected item" or "Power Apps Trigger" Flow that uses a premium or custom connector.

 

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Ryan Stone (Iron Contributor)
Solution

Ryan,

 

   Both the app creator and consumer will need to have a P1 or P2 license.

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