Set up secret references

You can export secret references from a D365 FO environment to be imported in another D365 FO environment.

If you export a project, the secret references are not exported. If an export of the secret references is required, you can export the secret references separately.

Usually, you only export and import secret references to a D365 FO environment of the same type. For example, you only export secret references from a Development environment to import these in another Development environment. Reason: You don't want to mix up data. For example, you don't want to mix up Test data with Production data.

You can create secret references to store secrets at a central place in Connectivity studio. Wherever you need a secret in Connectivity studio, you can use a secret reference.

Benefits of using secret references are:

• One place to maintain secrets. For example, you can use a secret in several connectors. If the secret expires, you only update the secret reference instead of updating the secret separately for each applicable connector.
• When you use a secret reference, the secret is not shown or visible where the secret is applied. The secret is also not visible when you export or import project configurations.

You can import secret references that are exported from another D365 FO environment.

If you import a project, the secret references are not included. If the related secret references are required, you can import the secret references separately.

Usually, you only export and import secret references to a D365 FO environment of the same type. For example, you only export secret references from a Development environment to import these in another Development environment. Reason: You don't want to mix up data. For example, you don't want to mix up Test data with Production data.

For each project, you can migrate from 'locally' stored secrets to centrally stored secrets. To do so, you can automatically collect the locally stored secrets and store these in the centrally stored secret references.

During upgrade:

• All locally stored secrets of the project are collected. Note: Also, the Azure storage password from the Connectivity studio parameters is collected and upgraded.
• For each unique secret, a secret reference is created with an automatically generated name. So, no duplicate secret references are created. Note: A secret reference is unique for the secret and environment type combination.
• For each record with a 'local' secret, the secret is removed, and the newly created secret reference is linked to the record.

Note: Usually, you only use this upgrade function once per project during migration from locally to centrally stored secrets.

You can show the records where a secret reference is used. This can be helpful, for example, if you want to change a secret and you want to see which records are involved.

You can change a secret reference name. this automatically updates the secret reference in all places where it is used.

You can update a secret reference name, for example, after you upgraded from local secret storage to central secret storage. In this case, you can change the automatically created secret reference names.