Microsoft released a public preview of Connection References, which store Power Automate (and some Power App) connections in solutions, and prompt for connection when the solution is moved to another environment.

This is a big deal because currently connections are not moved with solutions, which means that Power Automate flows are not connected after the solution is moved, and editing flows in Production environments are tedious and cause problems with ALM processes.

This change is also significant because it brings the value of solutions and ALM to non-CDS connected flows. Since Sharepoint, SQL, and custom connections can be automated using connnection references, deployment automation and CI/CD can now appply to connections other than CDS.

Listen to today's podcast as George Doubinski, Joel Lindstrom, and Shawn Tabor discuss connection references.

We also touch on environment variables and how these changes work with environment variables. And we celebrate Shawn "Hobbit" Tabor's 50th birthday!