Power Automate: Solution Deployment Between Environments

This article explains how to deploy a Power Automate Solution to another environment. Typical scenarios include implementing a solution at 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 (user credentials for flows)

Developing all components in a 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 provides a user-friendly guide for exporting Solutions. Click on Export Solution in the Solution Explorer. After specifying whether the Solution should 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. Like installing a program, all components must be pre-configured and are no longer editable after installation.

Important: Ensure that all changes in a Solution are published before export. Otherwise, child flows in the Managed Solution might not work.

Importing Solution in Target Environment

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

A key step is creating Connections for Cloud Flows, which can be configured during the import process in the wizard. Finally, the Connection References are reassigned to existing credentials 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!