Defect when using a FTP Flow in a PowerApp: each user is asked for the FTP server settings

[jf7575]

We are creating an app that relies on a Flow to send an XML file to a FTP server for signature with a private key.
Problem si that when regular users open the app, PowerApp request them to "Sign in" for the FTP connector and that means to enter the FTP server details when those are defined during the Flow definition!
Visibly a big defect.
2 Questions:
- To Microsoft: when can that defect be fixed?
- To All fellow developers: anybody has an idea on another way to send efficiently some files from Powerapp app to a remote Windows Server file directory (also on Azure)? Thank you!

Jeff

[v-micsh-msft]

Hi @jf7575,

Could you please share more details regarding how the flow created?

We could take use of team flow (Flow sharing), which allows multiple users to use and edit Flow settings.

Announcing the Preview of Team Flows

For App shared under PowerApps, the resources used in this app would also need to be shared:

Share app resources

For the file upload control, currently there is an idea submitted, which is planed:

Attach a file to form

Hope the information above is helpful.

Regards

[jf7575]

Hello,

Thank you for your answer.

The flow is very simple:

PowerApp -> FTP Create File with filename and content informaiton provided by PowerApps

It is called using Run in the Powerapp and works perfectly as long as it is the login that created the flow that connects.

Yes the connection sharing is what is required and the problem is the following:

• Sharing option is available for some connections such as SQL
• Sharing option is not available for FTP connections, you can only edit and delete

It is then most probably a defect a FTP conneciton can't be shared...

Visibly the same exact problem happens with SMTP connector, see the comments at the end of the link you provided on the share of connections: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/tutorials/share-app-resources/

Regards,

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Hi Jeff,

Did you figure out a workaround for this?  It has been a bit more than a year and the problem is still present.  Thanks!

[jf7575]

No solution, this seems to be a standard behavior of PowerApps. Even SMTP connectors require each use to enter his SMTP setting, that's totally dumb.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback.  It should be a configuration option whether or not you want to use the same creds to authenticate all users or if you want each user to enter their creds. 

[mcolbert]

This makes FTP from PowerApps unusable. Get wee get an update omn getting this fixed. Same occurs for SFTP connector.

[Anonymous]

adding in @JonL-MSFT to review and assist

@Anonymous

[jf7575]

I hope you can come with a fix. Note there was no answer to my question, since mid 2017!

[mcolbert]

@jf7575

We ended up building an Azure Function to transfer files from Azure Blob storage to an SFTP folder, storing the credentials in Azure Key Vault. Then exposed the function as a custom connector. Which is not ideal due to the way DLP policies work with PowerApps / Flow and custom connectors. But we had no choice, we were up against a deliverable with no fix in sight. As far as I know this is still not fixed.

We had two main issues with the SFTP connector that make it unusable, 1) the issue of requiring site properties and credentials when sharing the connector and 2) getting a very generic error attempting to transfer files to the root folder of the FTP site. All other tools (WinSCP, FileZilla, etc) were able to transfer to the root folder as was the library we used in the Azure Function, so this was not a permissions issue on the site itself.

I really wish the connectors were more powerful and less buggy. Sorry I can not report that it was fixed and there is a sinple work around.

Thanks, Mike