Problem Adding SharePoint List as Flow Owner (and do I need to??)

[ChadVKealey]

I created a Flow with a PowerApp trigger and both the Flow and App are connected to a couple of SharePoint lists. In similar situations (in fact, with other Flows triggered from the same App), I've set the two SP Lists as owners on the Flow. I don't know that this is strictly necessary (Is it??) for the users of the App to execute the Flow? 

In any event, to prevent users from directly accessing the lists, I used SPD to set the "Hide from browser" option. Yes, I know this is "security by obscurity" and not ideal, but as I don't have access to use other data sources (like SQL), it's what I need to do. I learned when creating previous Flows that "Hide from browser" also hid the list from Flow (setting it as an owner or even referencing the list in Flow; I needed to type/paste in the List name since it didn't appear in the drop-down). So, back then, I unhid the lists, set them as owner, then hid them again. No big deal. However, I'm trying that now and even though I've cleared the "Hide from browser" box (toggled it back and forth a few times, in fact), the lists just will not show up to add them as Owners. They DO show up in "Site Contents" on the site, so I know that the setting change is taking effect. 

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @ChadVKealey,

I assume that the following doc on Flows “owned by” SharePoint lists and libraries could be your reference:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/business-applications-release-notes/april18/microsoft-flow/sharepoi...

From the doc we know that, we could add a list as co-owner to the flow so that everyone who has edit access to the list automatically gets edit access to the flow. once the flow has been shared, you can simply distribute a link to it.

About your scenario, without sharing the flow with others, once you add a list as co-owners, users who have access to the list will be granted the access to the flow.

Hope it could be your reference.

Best regards,

Mabel

[ChadVKealey]

Yes, that is the document that I was using as a reference. However, the issue I'm having is that when I try to add a List as an owner of the Flow, it does not appear in the list of available Lists. I had previously set the "Hide from browser" property to true, which I know from past experience will prevent it from appearing in that list. However, in the past, I've been able to set that property to false and have the List re-appear. Now, when I try this, it does not work. So, I have no way of setting the Lists as Owners of this Flow.

[MattMueller]

Any updates on this?
I periodically experience this problem where I am unable to add a Sharepoint list as a Flow owner, even though I am the Flow's creator and Sharepoint site owner.

Example:
I create a new "For a Selected Item" Flow which is tied to a list on a sharepoint site that I own.
I go to the settings for the flow, then "edit owners" > Sharepoint.
Under the site dropdown, I am able to select my sharepoint site.
But under the List/Library dropdown, none of my lists/libraries show up, and I am not able add the list that Flow is operating on as an owner.
As a consequence, when I go to the list and right click on an item, my "For a Selected Item" flow does not show up under the "Flows" menu for that item, and is completely unrunnable!

[Anonymous]

I've had a similar thing happen from a slightly different direction -  when I was copying a flow and trying to attach it to a new list. In the trigger, the list was shown as a GUID, and I manually typed in the list name, thinking it made more sense. This broke the flow ownership for the list and the select didn't show up on the items, as you stated. When I changed the trigger back to the GUID, everything sorted itself out.

Not a solution, but there's something finicky about setting a SharePoint list as a flow owner. Something in the trigger itself is messed up. Maybe from inside the flow, delete your trigger and re-add it?

[MattMueller]

Thanks, I've tried deleteing the trigger before, and I've tried several times to just make an entierly new "for selected item flow".

And when setting up the trigger, I have tried both using the drop downs (which correctly shows all of my lists and libries) as well as manually copying the list GUID. Both ways are typically valid, but still for a few specific sites, no matter how I configure the trigger/flow, it never shows up as runnable from my sharepoint list. And from the edit owners screen, I am always able to select my sharepoint site from the first drop own, but the second drop down never shows or allows me to select any of the lists/libraries on my site.

Edit: Again to clarify, in this environment I have exactly one account with all of the premium flow features and all that. This account is also the top level owner of several separate sharepoint sites. For the vast majority of those sites, I have no problem creating "For a selected item" flows, having them show up in the list, or adding the list as an owner of the flow. But... for a small handful of my sharepoint sites (all created the same way, and I'm a site owner), the "For a selected item" flows never show up for any list on that site, and I am never able to add any of that sites lists as owners of any flow. Short of deleting and remaking the entier site, I'm not sure what to do.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if there's something about the site provisioning/list creation that's missing a hidden piece of data on the backend. In my case, the sites I have problems with are those that are created when I copy a Plan to a new group (usually I create a Team or a site directly in SharePoint). The lists are created via site design script.