New PowerApps and Flow Licensing coming October 1, 2019

[Pstork1]

If you haven't seen the announcement yet about the Licensing changes that are coming to PowerApps and Flow starting on October 1, 2019 you really need to read the following Blog. This announcement was originally made at Inspire this year, but has undergone a number of significant changes.  Make sure you read this and understand what it means to you and your organization.

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-licensing-options-for-powerapps-and-flow/

[PaulD1]

More info at this link:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/powerapps-flow-licensing-faq

A key concern for our team is Azure SQL DB (among many other connectors) being reclassified as premium. We standardised on using Azure SQL DB as the datasource for our (PowerApps and Flow based) Apps as we consider it more capable (Views, Stored Procedures, better support for delegation) and easier to scale than SharePoint Lists or CDS (and most of our customers don't have CDS anyway).

For our clients who are already paying for PowerApps (via O365 license) and Azure SQL DB, it is going to be hard to explain why they now have to pay extra to continue using those services together in their existing apps.

[Pstork1]

I agree with you and voiced the same concern to the product team.  In case you didn't notice it,  one of the recent changes is that MS is providing a five year grace period for any apps that are already using Azure SQL connections until 2024.  YOu will not be required to buy a premium license to continue using SQL for apps that are already in production before Oct. 1.  So your clients won't lose their existing investment. But its my understanding that any new apps being developed after October 1 with SQL will require a premium license. That helps, but it still isn't greate news.

[PaulD1]

Thanks @Pstork1, that's a really useful piece of information.

At least our existing projects/clients have a grace period - that does help reduce the pain.

Do you know if the grace period applies to all the connectors being moved into Premium? Particularly interested in the Azure Blob Storage connector as we have been standardising on using that for images, signatures and files (performs well, is was cheap, easy to use directly from PowerApps without the need for interemediary Flows).

[MrMarshall]

Hi @Pstork1!

Do you have any documentation about the five year grace period you are talking about?

I am using the SQL conenctor everywhere...

[MagnusGöransson]

I have seen information about the grace period in the service update email that my customer got.

It basically says that apps that are already using connectors that will move from standard to premium and is published before 1 october will have an exempt until 1 october 2024.

However, I would like to know what happens in the following sceanrious (if that will break the 2024-exempt)

- An app is moved from one environment to another

- An app is updated my using import powerapp functionality

- When new users are added after 1 october 2019

- If, for some reason, the app need to be "reinstalled" or "recreated"

I hope we can get som clarification on the above matters.

[QJappie22]

What will happen to PowerApps and Flows that don't use a P1 or P2 license? Does the ability to use the free plans of PowerApp and Flow still exist if you are not using any premium connectors or does every user or end user need one of the new licenses?

[Merlijn]

In previous posts I read about a minimum of 30 licenses (per app plan). I can't find it in de FAQ. Is this still the minimum purchase?

I'm asking this because a lot of our relations are small-business and doesnt have 30 users and a single app...

[Pstork1]

To the best of my knowledge the grace period only applies to the SQL connector moving to premium and not all the Azure connectors.

[Pstork1]

I can't point you at a publicly available blog post at this point.  MS is still working on that.  But if you have your global admin check through the messages in the Office 365 message center it is covered in one of those that went out last week.