Revisiting Custom Connectors

Recently I encountered an issue with a custom connector configured with authentication type OAuth 2.0. It&#;s solved now and I realize that I have learned a lot since the last time I wrote about custom connectors. It&#;s time to take this subject, dust it off, and make a new series of posts, let&#;s revisit custom connectors!

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All parts of this series:

Why create a Custom Connector?

Either you are just trying out Power Platform (or Azure Logic Apps) for fun. Or you have a real-world scenario. An example of a real-world scenario is when you need to connect to another system or service and you see that there is an API to be used. You want to stick to low-code and provide a possibility to connect to this service from e.g. a Power Automate cloud flow. You (and your team) will create more than one automation which includes connecting to this service. There is no OOB connector to be utilized.

Well, we could also ask, why connect to another system or service? You probably want to send or receive some kind of information, get two systems to talk to each other. Some kind of integration.

You then go and study the API documentation (which hopefully exists, if not maybe you reach out to the API provider). In the best case the service has the possibility to download the API specification. You are now all set for creating a custom connector to be used e.g. to set up automation using Power Automate cloud flows.

In reality it depends though, &#;all set&#; might not be the exact truth, you might need to do some more work. The OpenAPI definition needs to be in OpenAPI 2.0 format. The API you want to use might provide a downloadable file in OpenAPI 3.0 format. The API might be of a larger size than what a custom connector can manage. You might need to convert from OpenAPI 3.0 to OpenAPI 2.0 (e.g. via Postman) and you might need to split it or make a connector for only a certain part of the API.

Note! A custom connector can be setup if you want to connect to a service or system and there is no ready to be used connector for it. If there is one already, use that instead. See the list of all connectors. You can also certify a custom connector and have it available in the list of connectors after you have built your own.

Findings

• There is a max size of 1 MB for a Postman collection or OpenAPI 2.0 file if you want to start from that when you create your connector.
• You might need to split into several connectors depending on the size of the API.
• You can certify your connector, as a connector if you own the API, as an independent publisher connector if not.
• The publishing process is straightforward and you get good help from Microsoft.
• It still might take a while to create your custom connector, document it correctly (according to the Microsoft standards for certified connectors).
• It also might take a while to create the connector if you are not the owner of the API. In order to be able to test it properly you will need to have a deep understanding of the service your are making a connector for (depends on the complexity of the service of course).
• Using environment variables in custom connectors makes an essential part the ALM story for custom connectors, more info in a future post.
• This year an update to the platform might require you to update your existing custom connectors (OAuth 2.0), more info in a future post.
• There are logs available. View the Power Platform connector activity logs.

The upcoming posts will include more findings, specific to the post topics.

Also see the landing page for Power Platform and Azure Logic Apps connectors.

If you are looking for more details, kindly visit AIKE Electronics.

Photo by Chris Briggs on Unsplash

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