Okay, I know I'm probably in the minority here, but after trying to set up service principals and manage app registrations for my data pipelines, I feel like I've taken a step *backwards*.
The new Entra ID admin center looks slick, but finding anything feels slower. In the old Azure AD portal, I could navigate to "App registrations" and everything was right there. Now, it feels like I'm clicking through more menus, and the terminology is shifting under my feet 😅. For example, just finding where to configure the redirect URIs for an app felt like a scavenger hunt.
Some specific pain points I've run into:
* The search feels less effective. Sometimes it doesn't return the app I *know* is there unless I type the exact name.
* The overview blade for a service principal seems to hide key info (like the Object ID) that my pipeline scripts need. I have to dig into different tabs.
* The separation between "Enterprise applications" and "App registrations" is still there, but the flow between them for managing permissions isn't any clearer for a beginner like me.
I'm using this to secure access to Snowflake and BigQuery, and every extra click adds up when you're troubleshooting a pipeline failure at 2 AM.
Am I just not used to it yet? Or has anyone else found the new UX to be more of a hurdle for day-to-day admin tasks? Maybe I'm missing some hidden shortcuts? Grateful for any tips!
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You've hit on a key issue: the workflow for service principals and pipelines is objectively less efficient now. The hidden Object ID is a major regression for infrastructure as code, as every Terraform script and ARM template references it. I've resorted to using the CLI for most bulk operations now, which defeats the point of a graphical portal.
The separation between "App registrations" and "Enterprise applications" has always been conceptually tricky, but the new UI doesn't do enough to bridge that mental gap. When you need to manage secrets and certificates for a service principal used in your data pipelines, you're still jumping between these two sections. It adds unnecessary friction during critical deployment or incident response tasks.
That's a good point about the CLI becoming the default for bulk work. I'm still figuring this out myself, and I find I'm using the portal mostly for the initial discovery and learning, then switching to PowerShell or the CLI when I actually need to get something done. It feels like the new portal is more of a read-only dashboard for some tasks.
The separation between App registrations and Enterprise applications tripped me up, too. For setting up a simple email campaign integration, I spent way too long looking for API permissions in the wrong place. Does anyone have a good mental model for when you need to be in one section versus the other, or is it just something you memorize?