Describe Connectors

Question 1

What is a data connector?

Answer 1

Power Platform is made powerful by its ability to leverage data across many platforms. To do this, components of the Power Platform use connectors. You can think of connectors as a bridge from your data source to your app or workflow which allows information to be conveyed back and forth. Connectors allow you to extend your business solutions across platforms and add functionality for your users, and Power Platform has more than 275 connectors with the ability to build custom connectors as well.

Question 2

Which data connectors are available?

Answer 2

There are three different types of data connectors:

1. Standard connectors (e.g. SharePoint, Outlook, Youtube)
2. Premium connectors - require additional licensing for your app and/or users (e.g. SQL Server, Survey Monkey, Mail Chimp)
3. Custom connectors (e.g. publicly available API or custom API hosted in a cloud provider)

Question 3

Describe the two types of data sources to which data connectors connect

Answer 3

Tabular data: A tabular data source is one that returns data in a structured table format. Power Apps can directly read and display these tables through galleries, forms, and other controls. Additionally, if the data source supports it, Power Apps can create, edit, and delete data from these data sources. Examples include Common Data Service, SharePoint, and SQL Server.

Function-based data: A function-based data source is one that uses functions to interact with the data source. These functions can be used to return a table of data, but offer more extensive action such as the ability to send an email, update permissions, or create a calendar event. Examples include Office 365 Users, Project Online, and Azure Blob Storage.

Both of these data source types are commonly used to bring data and additional functionality to your solutions.

As you can see, connecting to data sources allows you to integrate disparate parts of your business solutions to build them out cohesively.

Question 4

Once you have established a data source and configured your connector, there are two types of operations you can use. Which?

Answer 4

Triggers: Triggers are only used in Power Automate and prompt a flow to begin. Triggers can be time based, such as a flow which begins every day at 8:00 am, or they could be based off of an action like creating a new record in a table or receiving an email. You will always need a trigger to tell your workflow when to run.

Actions: Actions are used in Power Automate and Power Apps. Actions are prompted by the user or a trigger and allow interaction with your data source by some function. For example, an action would be sending an email in your workflow or app or writing a new line to a data source.

Question 5

What do you do when there isn’t a connector already built for your data source?

Answer 5

You build a custom connector.

This will allow you to extend your app by calling a publicly available API, or a custom API you’re hosting in a cloud provider, such as Azure. API stands for Application Programming Interface and holds a series of functions available for developers. Connectors work by sending information back and forth across these APIs and gathering available functions into Power Apps or Power Automate. Because these connectors are function-based, they will call specific functions in the underlying service of the API to return the corresponding data.

An advantage of building custom connectors is that they can be used in different platforms, such as PowerApps, Power Automate, and Azure Logic Apps.