Power Automate: Solution Deployment

This article explains how to deploy a Power Automate solution to another environment. Typical scenarios include deploying a solution to a customer in a different tenant or copying a solution between development, test and production environments in the same tenant.

Introduction to Power Automate Solutions

A solution acts as a „project folder“ for all components of a Power Automate solution, including:

• Flows
• Environment variables (environment-specific adjustments for flows)
• Connection References (access data of the users of the flows)

The development of all components in one solution has the advantage that they can be easily migrated as a package to another Power Platform Environment, even to another tenant.

Important: Power Automate flows can only be called as child flows if both flows are part of the same solution. Flows outside of solutions are therefore not callable and thus not reusable. Solutions form the basis for a modular architecture within Power Automate.

How do I export a solution?

The Power Automate Portal offers user-friendly instructions for exporting solutions. In the Solution Explorer, click on Export Solution. Once you have specified whether the solution is to be exported as managed or unmanaged, a .zip file is saved on your computer.

Export options for Solutions

Unmanaged Export: Use this option for development environments, as the solution can be edited in the target environment after import.

Managed Export: This option is ideal for production environments. As with the installation of a programme, all components must be configured in advance and can no longer be edited after installation.

Important: Ensure that all changes in a solution are published before export. Otherwise, child flows may not work in the managed solution.

Import solution in the target environment

The import process is simple. Switch to the target environment and click in the Solution Explorer on Import Solution. Upload the exported .zip file and a wizard will guide you through the import process.

A key step is the creation of connections for cloud flows, which can be configured in the wizard during the import process. Finally, the connection references are reassigned to existing access data in the target directory, such as the service user in the customer tenant.

And voilà! The solution has been successfully migrated from Environment 1 to Environment 2!