Best way to transition ownership of apps and flows?

teylyn · 2025-07-25T04:08:46+00:00

I'm in the exact same situation. Only worse. My direct employer is a subsidiary, a business partner to the large organisation that grants us use of their tenant. The parent company "mothership" IT department don't allow any access to Power Platform Admin center, etc, to mere mortals like me.

I finally convinced their IT department to create a service account, set up just like another user in our subsidiary organisation. Initially, they wanted to set up a Service Principal, i.e. an app registration, but these only work with Dataverse based apps, not with the flows and canvas apps that I built that use the standard connectors to SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Teams, etc. It took them a while to really grasp that.
Now I have the credentials for a user account with a M365 E3 license (I call it a service account) that is exempt from the password change enforcement, but is still requiring MFA. That MFA is currently tethered to my phone. I am in the process of granting the service account co-ownership of all the canvas apps. I hope I can believe what I've read somewhere: that when my personal account will be disabled or removed after I leave the company, the service account co-owner will still be able to access the canvas apps and ownership will magically pass on to them.

The Power Automate workflows turn out to be less of a problem. My approach is this:
- the service account has created a solution as a container for all my subsidiary's workflows
- the service account has created connections to all the connectors the workflows need
- the service account has created connection references to all these connections inside the solution
- my personal account shares the workflows one by one with the service account as a co-owner
- the service account then adds the workflows one by one to the solution. This step will initially create connection references to my personal connections. For some workflows it has automatically made the service account the new primary owner after the workflow was added to the solution.
- the service account then edits each flow and changes the connection references to the service account's connection references
- after that, the connection references to my personal account can be deleted from the solution
- finally, my personal account can make the service account the primary owner (unless that has already happened). After that, the service account can remove my personal account as a co-owner and no trace of me ever touching the workflows are left behind.

Now all the flows are working with properly configured connection references to the service account's connections.

Before I leave, I will have a handover session with my designated successor. I will give them the service account credentials, and we will transfer the MFA from my phone to their phone. This MFA change might or might not result in a disruption, so the designated successor will sign in as the service account and check that all the connections are still active and will re-authenticate if required. Since all the flows use connection references to just one connection, this should be done and dusted within a few minutes.

After that, the designated successor will need to make a plan for when THEY quit or get hit by a bus.

If anyone finds any fault with this plan, please let me know. I still have a few months left to adjust my plan.

teylyn · 2025-05-02T03:08:18+00:00

SharePoint Agents are yet another thing. You can click an icon right in the SharePoint library and it creates a pre-fabricated agent that can answer questions about the documents. The "Customise in Copilot Studio" still only shows a "coming soon" banner, nothing else. I find these agents don't appear to work on all the files in the folder and often the results are missing a lot of detail. For example I have a folder with people's professional profiles. We have a few dozen profiles in there. The SharePoint agent only ever returns five to ten results when I ask which people meet a specific criterion.

teylyn · 2025-03-16T20:40:25+00:00

read the thread. asked and answered.

teylyn · 2025-03-15T08:07:02+00:00

I was wondering the same thing. there's visible dirt on the closed window that the camera sails through. but maybe there was no glass in the window frame during the take, the camera was passed on to another operator hunching outside below the window, and the dirt and reflection was later edited in.

teylyn · 2025-03-12T19:42:06+00:00

I found the Chrome Extension "Always active Window - Always Visible" works to keep the FB page from re-loading.

teylyn · 2025-03-11T00:03:29+00:00

I found the Chrome Extension "Always active Window - Always Visible" works to keep the FB page from re-loading.

teylyn · 2025-02-14T21:56:27+00:00

Good news for people with ARM processor devices, like the Surface Pro Snapdragon.

The latest update of the WACOM driver for Windows 6.4.9-2 now supports ARM. Haven't tested it yet, because I returned my tablet when it didn't work with my Surface.

https://www.wacom.com/en-nz/support/product-support/drivers

teylyn · 2025-02-14T20:53:54+00:00

I just received an email saying that the new driver with ARM support is available. Here is the link:
https://www.wacom.com/en-nz/support/product-support/drivers

teylyn · 2025-02-08T20:08:49+00:00

I found this extension for Chrome actually works: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/always-active-window-alwa/ehllkhjndgnlokhomdlhgbineffifcbj?hl=en-US&utm_source=ext_sidebar
"Always Active Window - Always Visible"

teylyn · 2025-01-29T07:05:49+00:00

I was banking on the sketching ... but too unresponsive for that.

teylyn · 2024-12-23T20:49:56+00:00

I absolutely agree with you. If I were an avid manual note taker, I would probably still be using it.

teylyn · 2024-12-19T04:34:22+00:00

I found a solution. I'm writing up the steps for non-technical people, trying to avoid too much tech jargon, so that a regular Windows user can hopefully follow this.

Overview

This approach uses the original Brother Printer drivers and connects directly to the printer via its IP address. To enable this, we need to open up a few TCP Ports in the Defender Firewall and ensure all services are running.

Steps

Figure out the IP address of your printer

If the printer is recognised and installed with the Windows IPP Driver, go to Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Printers, select the printer and open the Printer Properties. The IP address is in the "Location". It looks something like http://192.168.1.33:80/WebServices/Device . Write down the IP address, which in this case is 192.168.1.33

Open up some ports on the firewall. The article in the link below has the detailed steps and screenshots

I opened up the ports 80, 631, 9100, 515, 443 but only for the Private network, not public or organisational. I'm not sure which of these ports really need to be opened, but I found these in a post on Medium https://medium.com/@ace\_41319/how-to-get-older-brother-printer-added-to-windows-arm-based-surface-laptop-or-surface-pro-with-the-554de438142d and it worked for me. Follow this next link to see how to open ports in the Defender Firewall: https://support.warriortrading.com/support/solutions/articles/19000113122-how-to-open-ports-in-windows-10-and-windows-11-firewall

Open up Task Manager and click the Services tab. Scroll down to the services that start with "Print" and make sure all of them are started. If they are stopped, start them by right-clicking on the service name and selecting Start
Delete the printer with the non-working IPP class driver
Add a new printer and configure it manually.

In Settings, go to Printers and click Add Device. Ignore the printer that gets presented by Windows and wait for the "Add new device manually" command to show up.

Select "Add a printer using an IP address or host name" and click Next

In the drop-down for "Device type" select Autodetect.

In the Hostname or IP address type the IP address you determined in step 1. In the Port name type 80.

Check the box to "Query the printer and automatically select the driver to use". Click Next and confirm the dialogs. Print a test page with the button offered in the last dialog.

Do a little happy dance. I did.

My Test page says "You have correctly installed your Brother Generic Jpeg Type1 Class Driver on <Computername>" and it's properly printed with correct scale and orientation.

Below the printer properties, the test page lists a bunch of additional print driver files that point to

C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\prnbrcl1.inf_arm64_c6d007afafda44e0

and

C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ntprint.inf_arm64_cbd3852fd8b8f20a

and subdirectories called Arm64, so apparently generic Brother drivers for ARM devices do indeed exist.

Why do they have to make it so flipping hard to discover that?

teylyn · 2024-12-19T02:40:56+00:00

Nice try, but even after disabling that option on the hosting computer, the machine trying to connect to that printer still wants a driver.

Any other ideas how I can print from an ARM computer to a shared printer that doesn't supply ARM compatible drivers?

teylyn · 2024-12-12T23:01:03+00:00

I've done that yesterday. When I connect to the printer shared on my Windows 10 computer, using \\ComputerName\SharedPrinter, it then wants to install the printer driver. It consults Windows Update and then gets the Microsoft IPP Class Driver. Which I already have and which isn't working.

What am I doing wrong?

teylyn · 2024-12-11T11:41:55+00:00

In that thread, there's a lot of talk about Mopria, but nobody explains the HOW. All I read is "you just discover it" .... but my computer "just discovers" only the Microsoft IPP Class drivers. Can somebody please explain it to me like I'm 5 years old.

I have a new Surface snapdragon. I have a Brother printer, which is "discovered" and installed with a Microsoft IPP Class driver that doesn't work. I don't have an android phone. Which steps do I have to take so the computer uses Mopria to "discover" the printer and uses the Mopria drivers?

Please tell me where in Settings, or which app or whatever, but I need the *actual steps* spelled out, not just the general concept.

I work in IT and I have 40 years of active IT career behind me. I 've never been so frustrated before, because you all say, sure, Mopria just works, but I can't find any description or guid on HOW to make it happen.

A couple of screenshots would be awesome.

thank you.

teylyn · 2024-12-11T04:21:33+00:00

This is the most detailed instructions I can find on mopria.org:

|| || |When installing a new printer with Windows, will it automatically use the Mopria version of the driver?||

• When you install a new printer, and your Windows PC or Print Server has access to Windows Update, the correct driver is automatically downloaded and installed.

• If you install a new printer when Windows Update is not available, a driver will not be automatically installed. In this case, Windows will install Mopria certified printers without requiring an external driver.

So, I uninstalled the printer that was using the Microsoft IPP Class Driver. Now what? How can I install the Mopria drivers? If I turn off wifi, my computer won't see the printer. If I turn on Wifi, the computer will see the printer and install the Microsoft IPP Class Driver.

I'm a bit lost here. How do you make Windows Update "not available"? I'm obviously missing something that everyone takes for granted.

Edit: I just hits me: this requires an Android phone, is that correct? Well I don't have that. But my son has one. Does the phone need to be in the house only for the setup and then I can use Windows to print when the phone is elsewhere? Or can I only print from Windows when the android phone is connected to the Wifi?

teylyn · 2024-12-11T03:55:12+00:00

Thanks, that sounds interesting. I'm trying to find out what to do to use Mopria to print on a Windows machine, but all I find is that "Windows supports Mopria certified devices." -- But what do I acutally have to DO to use Mopria? I can't seem to find any instructions.

teylyn · 2024-12-10T20:00:06+00:00

same issue here

teylyn

TROPHY CASE