Email setup and the number of Power Automate environments (and licenses) depend on the number of companies you manage and whether they share services and domain names.
- If you administer 1 company, you need 1 license
- If you administer multiple companies and you segregate invoice data out of security concerns, you will need a separate Power Automate environment for each one.
- If you administer multiple companies with a centralized AP department, you may be able to share your Power Automate environment.
- Even if you have a centralized AP department that shares data, if you want your companies to have distinct email addresses for your vendors to send their invoices, you will need different Power Automate environments.
The Details
This chart shows these 4 cases in more detail and describes its setup:
|
Data access allowed between companies? | Separate email domain required for each company? | Number of Power Automate environments needed | Email(s) associated with Power Automate environment | Company Invoice Email | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | N/A | N/A | 1 | APInvoice@xxx.com | APInvoice@xxx.com |
| 2 | Multiple | N | Y | Multiple | APInvoice@xxx.com, APInvoice@yyy.com, APInvoice@zzz.com… | APInvoice@xxx.com for company A; APInvoice@yyy.com for company B; APInvoice@zzz.com for company C… |
| 3 | Multiple | Y | N | 1 | APInvoice@xxx.com | There are two options for setting up the email. One is using Microsoft plus addressing. The other is using Email aliases. Please see below for more details. |
| 4 | Multiple | N | Y | Multiple | APInvoice@xxx.com, APInvoice@yyy.com, APInvoice@zzz.com… | APInvoice@xxx.com for company A; APInvoice@yyy.com for company B; APInvoice@zzz.com for company C… |
Configuring for Multiple Companies to Share one Power Automate Environment
There are two ways of configuring email so that individual companies can each have their own AP address but all the emails get forwarded through one Power Automate flow:
- Microsoft Plus addressing
- Email aliases
Microsoft Plus addressing (Case 3 recommended option)
With Microsoft Plus Addressing in Exchange Online, using the following format will allow you to receive the invoice in a mailbox that the user desires:
Company invoice email address followed by a plus sign (+) and the company database name as shown in the example: APInvoice+TWO@xxx.com.
Email aliases (Case 3 alternative)
If Microsoft Plus addressing is not possible, the alternative is to create email aliases to make incoming invoices go to the right company. They all need to use the same domain:
- APInvoice1@xxx.com for company A
- APInvoice2@xxx.com for company B…
We recommend Microsoft Plus method become in some customer’s systems, the alias email does not work properly when an email is sent from the same domain.
Why Are We Making This So Complicated?
Note that when you have multiple companies, the setup suggested in cases 2 and 4 is more straight-forward. So why do we support case 3?
The purpose that case 3 serves is to save you money by lowering the number of Power Automate environments you need to license. It has the disadvantage of having to use the same domain name for email across all your companies and may lead to difficulty communicating with vendors who are servicing multiple companies.
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