How to Change Connection Reference in Power Automate Flow?

I was working on a Power Automate flow that was moved from one environment to another. The flow was running, but it was using the wrong connections. Because of this, the flow started failing or sometimes ran under the wrong user account.

After checking the flow settings, I found that the issue was related to connection references. The problem was that this was not a small flow. It had multiple approval levels, logging logic, and follow-up message steps. In such cases, changing the connection by opening each action inside the flow is time-consuming and risky.

Earlier, I used to think that the only way to fix this was to open the flow and change the connection action by action. But now, Power Automate provides an option to change the connection reference directly, without opening the flow in edit mode.

In this tutorial, I will explain how to change the connection reference in a Power Automate flow.

What is a Connection Reference?

A connection reference specifies which connection a flow should use for a connector, such as SharePoint, Outlook, or Office 365 Users. Instead of hard-coding a connection, Power Automate uses connection references so flows can be reused across environments.

Note:

The Connection references option is visible only when the flow is part of a Solution or when the flow is created in a Developer environment. If the flow is created outside a solution, this option will not be displayed in Power Automate.

Change Connection Reference in Power Automate

Follow the steps below to change the connection reference for a flow.

1. Go to Power Automate and click on My Flows or Solutions.
2. Open the flow for which you want to change the connection reference. In my case, I am using the Site Requests flow.

3. Once the flow is opened, you will see information such as the flow name, owner, status, and run history.

4. On the right side of the page, you will see a section called Connection references. This section lists all connectors used in the flow, such as:
   • SharePoint
   • Office 365 Users
   • Office 365 Outlook

5. Click on the connector you want to update. You can either select a different existing connection or configure it so that run-only users are prompted to provide their own connection for this connector. Save the changes.

This means any user who runs the flow will be asked to sign in with their own account for that connector. The flow will then run using their permissions.

This way, you can change the Connection Reference in Power Automate Flow.

Conclusion

In this post, I explained how to change the connection reference in a Power Automate flow. I showed where to find the connection reference option and explained the important requirement that the flow must be part of a solution or a developer environment.

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