Connection errors in all connector actions when sharing a Power Automate flow with another user

[u/Rich_Resident_7085]

Hi everyone,

We are facing an issue with a Power Automate flow in a test environment and would appreciate any guidance.

Environment

We have a Power Automate flow created by User 1.

The flow contains multiple actions that require connections, such as:

• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Dataverse
• Other connector-based actions

The flow works correctly when it is tested from User 1's account.

User roles

We currently have two users in the same environment:

User 1 – Flow owner

• Basic User
• Environment Maker
• System Administrator
• System Customizer

User 2 – Tester

• Basic User
• Environment Maker

Issue

We use the "Send a copy" option in Power Automate to share the flow with User 2.

User 2 receives the flow and can set it up, but after opening the flow, all actions that require a connection show a connection error / connection needs to be configured.

This happens across multiple connector actions rather than with only one specific connector.

For example, actions that work correctly for User 1 show a connection error for User 2.

Important observation

We tested the same flow with User 2 after assigning the System Customizer role.

After giving User 2 System Customizer privileges, the connection issues are resolved and the flow works correctly.

When User 2 has only:

• Basic User
• Environment Maker

the connection errors occur.

Connection References

We are also investigating whether this is related to Connection References.

Our understanding is that the flow should use Connection References so that the flow can use the appropriate connection for the user/environment rather than being dependent on the original owner's connection.

However, we are not sure whether the "Send a copy" option correctly handles/rebinds the Connection References for the receiving user.

What we want to achieve

We do not want to give the Tester user the System Customizer role just to make the flow work.

We would like to keep the Tester user's permissions limited to:

• Basic User
• Environment Maker

and provide only the specific additional privileges required for the flow and its connection references.

Questions

1. Why do all connector actions show connection errors when the flow is shared using "Send a copy"?
2. Is this expected behavior when using "Send a copy" instead of deploying/importing the flow through a Solution?
3. Are there specific Dataverse privileges/security-role permissions required for a user to use Connection References?
4. What is the recommended security role configuration for a user who needs to create/test/run the flow without having System Customizer?

Any guidance on the required permissions or the recommended architecture would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[u/measuredsympathy]

If I'm not mistaken every user needs to authenticate connectors. They also have to have the same permissions for data or lists being used.

[u/DCHammer69]

What is the exact error message? I think I’ve run into this when copying flows and it won’t even work with the very same creds the original flow did work with.

Here is what I believed happened. I think if you have a solution open, when you create a new flow it just arbitrarily grabs a connection reference from that solution and if it’s not valid, that flow is then broken.

Nothing I could do would remove the embedded reference to the bad connection.

And now I can’t actually remember how I even managed to fix it. I think what I did was get into the correct solution, and created an empty flow in that solution which did grab the correct connection reference.

Then I copied the actions from the bad flow to the good one one chunk at a time and correcting dynamic references as needed.

It was a pain but I could not figure out another way at to solve it.

[u/Vjabhishek]

The only way to resolve is to use service account for test and different for prod. If you share the flow with tester then connection needs to be bind in the solution for that user.

[u/Rich_Resident_7085 → u/Vjabhishek]

okay, thanks

[u/IncreaseNegative4614]

Treat System Customizer as a diagnostic clue, not the fix. I’d move the flow into a Solution, define connection references and environment variables there, then explicitly bind them during deployment rather than relying on “Send a copy” to reproduce the owner’s configuration.

Create a limited test role and add only the missing Dataverse privileges one at a time while recording which action fails. We use SIGNLD internally to connect the flow version, environment, connection reference, user role, failed run, and deployment decision so elevated access does not quietly become the permanent workaround.