The Challenge of Using Web API’s with Power Apps

Overview

An Application Programming Interface (API) for a web browser or web server is called a web API. It can be connected to the client side of a web application as a web development concept. One or more publicly accessible endpoints to a predefined request-response messaging system usually expressed in JSON or XML via an HTTP-based web server, make up a server-side web API. If a remote web application cannot access a server API (SAPI) publicly, it is not regarded as a server-side web API. A programmatic interface to increase functionality within a web browser or other HTTP client is called a client-side web API. One or more publicly accessible endpoints to a predefined request-response messaging system, usually represented in JSON or XML, make up a server-side web API. An HTTP-based web server is typically used to expose web APIs.

You may discover that, in the process of creating a Power Apps app, you must call a web API that was developed by a traditional or high-code development team within your company. The generated Power app is, however, an internal-facing application. More than a thousand connectors in the Power Platform ecosystem allow you to access resources inside and outside your business. Nevertheless, there isn’t an integrated connector that allows you to use web APIs that your company created. A special connection must be made to bridge the gap between web APIs and Power Apps. But if the existing connectors don’t suit the requirement, it’s not complicated to create Custom connectors on an ad-hoc basis.

Working with Custom Connectors

Hundreds of pre-configured connectors are available to link Microsoft and non-Microsoft services to Power Apps. By enabling you to design a connector with its own activities, such as using a web API housed in Azure API Management from a Power Apps application, custom connectors fill this gap. To build unique/custom connectors, developers can also utilize Visual Studio’s connected services. These are a set of resources to assist you in establishing connections to services such as Microsoft Power Platform. With the integration, you can achieve connection to a Power Platform environment, establish a Custom connector automatically to suit the Power Platform environment, or configure the Dev tunnel to connect the custom connector locally. For web APIs, OpenAPI specifies a common and language-neutral interface description. It makes it possible for both people and machines to learn about and comprehend a service’s capabilities without requiring them to look through network traffic or read source code or other documentation. A consumer can easily comprehend and interact with a web API by using an OpenAPI document that describes the web API.
Any online API that has an OpenAPI document adequately describing it can have a custom connector made for it. OpenAPI document for custom connectors has many advantages. Eliminate dependencies: You don’t have to wait for someone from API Management to create a custom connector for you; you can generate one yourself using an OpenAPI document. Furthermore, it’s becoming increasingly typical for web APIs to have OpenAPI document creation features built right into them by development teams. This implies that you can use a URL to get the OpenAPI document, which you can then use to build a custom connector.
Boost flexibility: When your web API development company can provide you with an OpenAPI document, the pace of your Power App development will quicken. To build and utilize a custom connector, you don’t need to rely on them in the future.

Power Platform can be exported from Azure API Management or added as a linked service in Visual Studio to enable the creation of a custom connection. The Power Apps app developer can use the web API and the custom connector with either of these options; they don’t require knowledge of the web API’s URL or functionality. A web API is wrapped in a connection. It makes it possible for Power Apps and the web API to interact. But until you make a connection for it, the custom connector remains inactive. The host and operation details of the web API are known to the connection. To enable communication with the web API, the connection has a reference to the connector and is aware of the credentials. Even while Power Apps provide hundreds of connectors to interact with both Microsoft and non-Microsoft services, there are some services, like the Inventory Management API, that you would want to talk to but aren’t offered as prebuilt connectors. This situation is handled by custom connectors, which let you build a connector with independent operations. If you’re a skilled developer, you can export the APIs from API Management or Visual Studio-connected services to create a custom connector. As a citizen developer, you can import an OpenAPI document to build a custom connection in Power Apps, provided you have one.

Thus, Web API is considered the best technique for Pro Developers to use with Power Apps.

About CloudThat

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