How do you use environment variables and connection references?

Required tools

• A solution in progress — With flows or integrations that point to something environment-specific.

Environment variables

1. 1.Find the values that differ between the environments

   Review the flows and look for hard-coded addresses, email recipients, and threshold values. Each of them is a candidate.

2. 2.Create the variable in the solution

   Give it a name that explains what it controls. Feel free to add a default value, but be aware that it will carry over to production if no one overrides it.

3. 3.Set the actual value for each environment after import

   This is the step that gets forgotten. The symptom is that production sends notifications to the test address for weeks before anyone notices.

Connection references

1. 4.Create one reference for each service used by the flow

   One for Dataverse, one for Outlook, and so on. The flow points to the reference rather than to a specific connection.

2. 5.Link the reference to a shared user in production

   This is the key point: in production, the reference should point to an account that will not disappear when someone leaves. This is the simplest way to prevent the automation from stopping.

3. 6.Verify that the flows run after import

   A flow with an unconnected reference is shown as disabled. Check the status of all flows in the solution after each deployment.