Want a test environment...

[Anonymous]

I searched forums and the only other forum I found that relates to my ask is this one.

Why provide us different environments for useless things like timezones and segregation of access when things like expressions and "Share" exist. The only real reason for environments is to compartmentalize production versus development. 

PowerApps at least provides versioning... But still largely suffers from similar problems Flow has and that is no way to truly develop without going live.

The only viable option - albeit not viable at all - that I can logically think of is constructing a parallel environment (development parallel to production). 

Still though this is cumbersome and painfully for the fact that I have to spend more time adjusting connections than I do developing. 

I got a ~150 action Flow that is in production - I need to change up how 2 or so of the small features within said Flow work. This Flow can have no down time. How does Microsoft propose I deal with my situation? The only thing I can think of is using ShareGate to make a copy of my backend (which is SharePoint), then export a copy of the flow and import it to a "Development" environment. Once imported, I now have to adjust all the connections to point to the development SharePoint instance. After doing that, I do development work and testing. I am now ready to port the solution to production. I now have to export/import my development version to the production environment? Then reconfigure all the connections again? Oh god - talk about the liklihood of human error to mess up or miss a connection resulting in a broken production Flow at the onset of deploying the newly developed feature set.

[v-yamao-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

When exporting and importing a flow from one environment to another, we need to configure all the required settings, including selecting the connections that are required to setup the flow.

However, before selecting the connections for the imported flow, you need to reconfigure all the connections in the destination environment if they have not been created.

It is a default behavior of Flow, if you have good suggestions on improving this feature, please feel free submit your idea on Flow Ideas Forum:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/idb-p/FlowIdeas

I will suggest other customers who have the same request with you to vote you idea as well.

Best regards,

Mabel