ALM: How to manage Sharepoint connector across dev, test and prod?

[damienjs]

Hi All,

I'm in the process of trying to work out the best practises around migrating an app that uses a sharepoint list as it's data store between dev, test and prod environments. I currently have build and release pipelines built for the application that will move it between environments and that is working great.

The current issue i'm facing is how do i point the application at a different sharepoint site in each environment. I've explored using an environment variable but i cannot work out if it can be used as an input for the Sharepoint connector, is this even possible in this scenario? Is there some other way i can either automatically or manually configure the connection once the app is deployed as a managed application?

Cheers,

Damien

[Magesoe · Accepted solution]

There is currently no way to do this fully automatically. You can move the app between environments, but you would need to manually configure the app once it is deployed.

One solution to easy the pain is to have 2 pipelines, one for your regular configurations, forms, views etc. And then one for your things with external connectors like SharePoint. This of course requires 2 different solutions in CDS.

That way you can customize the system, without having to constantly go in and configure your connectors.

[damienjs]

Thanks for the response, really just needed confirmation what i was trying isn't possible.

I think i'm going to try convince the client to move the data store to CDS to make it easier for deployment but your 2 solution strategy is really helpful to think about.

[JensKofod]

it seem that there is a new option as u can now automatically create Power Platform environment variables when connecting to SharePoint list in a Canvas App, and when importing Canvas app in other environment it will ask for which SharePoint list to use... see a demo of it here Now it is time to be Curious about Power Platform Environment Variables! (iiu.dk)