Timeout for Power Automate ArcGIS Connector

[EendrulatGH]

Microsoft's documentation for the ArcGIS Connector list a few limitations, including:

Connections will time out after 14 days and must be refreshed manually by initiating a sign-in to ArcGIS.

Does this mean that any PA flows using the connector will need to be manually updated every 2 weeks? Is there any longer term plans on the roadmap to address this, or suggested workarounds to avoid this manual step?

Appreciate any guidance!

[SeanKMcGinnis · Accepted solution]

Hi @EendrulatGH - your understanding is correct. The connection uses a token to connect to ArcGIS Online and it expires after 14 days forcing the user to refresh the connection.

We are working with Microsoft and investigating other methods for authenticating to avoid the two week expiration, but no timeline for release has been set.

[EendrulatGH]

Thanks for the confirmation!

[Tiff]

Hello @SeanKMcGinnis, thank you for this information and for your recent responses on this thread! I am following up to see if there have been any updates on the 2 week timeout. I had spoken to some Esri staff in the past year or so. Also, is this the best thread to be following for updates, or is there another place that updates will be shared, specifically about the 2 week timeout authentication period? Thank you!

[RobertAnderson3]

Hi @Tiff the ArcGIS Connector (the orange one) no longer has an issue with tokens timing out, the Survey123 Connector (green one) does still have this two week timeout though (the trigger doesn't because it receives the token with the payload, but things like the Create report action will still have the 2 week timeout). Though I see below if the ArcGIS Connector flow isn't triggered in 2 weeks it will still timeout, but mine run consistently so I can't speak to that.

That said, it seems now the Survey123 Connector actions are all available in the ArcGIS Connector as well, so you could always move to that, however the ArcGIS Connector is part of the paid plan while the Survey123 Connector is not.

[Tiff]

Thanks @RobertAnderson3,, I actually mixed up this thread with my primary question, which was on the Survey123 connector. While I have access to the premium ArcGIS connector, there have been some problems with it and thus I would rather stick with Survey123 despite the 2 week timeout. I actually had no idea that the ArcGIS connector flow would time out. Is this unique to each flow or just the connection itself?

In addition, in reference to my initial question, do you happen to have the most recent/authoritative forum post for the Survey123 connector 2 week timeout issue? I searched and just cannot find it. I would like to keep up with updates. Thank you again!

[RobertAnderson3]

Ah no worries.

What issues have you encountered with the ArcGIS Connector? I want to start moving my flows to it so I was wondering if any differences were appearing.

I am not sure about the ArcGIS Connector timing out, I haven't experienced it personally.

Ahh okay, I do remember seeing another thread that was talking about it as well, I'll see if I can find it..

[Tiff]

Hi @RobertAnderson3, so the biggest issue is that somehow the updates don't trigger immediately. I worked with Esri support on understanding why, but it tends to take longer than 1 minute and up to 5 minutes. In comparison with Survey123 that is almost instant, that was a big difference. In addition, even though the connector works with fetching updates, it doesn't let you specify which fields you want to see have been changed. That led to some limitations in what we could do with our workflows. Finally, recently there was a big issue in the webhooks deactivating after some time, randomly. Luckily a workaround was found, but it caused quite a few headaches for me and users of the tools I created.

[RobertAnderson3]

Ah yeah, I did notice some challenges with the delays on the "when a layer is updated" trigger, but that probably wouldn't be an issue for my flows much outside of testing. 

The lack of looking at specific fields did end up causing me issues too, for example I only wanted to know when a Status field was changed to Complete and nothing else updating mattered (it was causing some duplication but I found a workaround)

And yeah that bug lately was quite a headache but it's been fixed thankfully from my understanding.

[SeanKMcGinnis]

@Tiff - regarding the timeout issue in the Survey123 connector for Power Automate, there is no further development on that connector and the time out issue is not going to be addressed. All future capabilities are going to be in the ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate.

As @RobertAnderson3 shared, the connection timeout issue has been addressed when we ported the Survey123 capabilities into the connectors that work with ArcGIS Online and Enterprise.

I would be interested to hear what problems you had with the ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate that are making you cautious.