Slides of the session Extend The Power Platform with Custom Connectors from Daniel Laskewitz at CollabDays NL 2022 in Vianen.

1. #CollabDaysNL | @CollabDaysNL | www.collabdays.org/2022-nl
Daniel Laskewitz
Senior Developer Advocate, Microsoft
Extend the Power Platform with
Custom Connectors

2. #CollabDaysNL | @CollabDaysNL | www.collabdays.org/2022-nl
OUR SPONSORS

3. Daniel Laskewitz
Developer Advocate @ Microsoft
https://twitter.com/laskewitz
https://linkedin.com/in/laskewitz

4. Agenda
ž Connectors
ž What is a connector?
ž Why use custom connectors?
ž Step by step: Build a connector
ž Types of connectors
ž Demo #1: build your first connector
ž Independent Publisher Connectors
ž Tools
ž Demo #2: download, edit & update the
connector
ž Demo #3: Power Platform CLI – generate an
app from a custom connector
ž Resources
ž Wrap up

5. Connectors
What is a connector?

6. What is a connector?
A formal definition of a
REST API
Allows the REST service to talk
to Microsoft Power Apps, Power
Automate, and Logic Apps
Currently 800+ connectors in the
product Connector
Binary
OpenAPI
API Properties

7. Why use custom connectors?
Add services that are not currently supported
Expand connectors that currently don't have the trigger/action you want
Custom connectors are simple to build, don't require a lot of coding
Can be built using the wizard, a postman collection, or with your favourite IDE (for instance VS Code)
Can be shared, packaged and certified via GitHub

8. Step by step: Build a connector
Read the docs / know the API you want to build the connector for
Start in one of the products (Power Apps, Power Automate or Logic Apps)
Set up the authentication
Define the operations (triggers / actions) for your connector
Add code if needed (for now, C# code is supported)
Save and test your connector

9. Types of connectors
Custom
Connector
Certified
Connector
Independent
Publisher
Connector
Internal
Connector
developer or
someone else
Public or private
Everyone
Connector
developer
Public
Everyone
Someone else
Public
API
Availability
Service
Owner
Audience
Connector
Type

10. Demo
Build your first connector.

11. Independent Publisher Connectors
An Independent Publisher connector is a premium connector developed and
maintained by one or more Independent Publishers
The connectors are submitted to the Power Platform Connectors GitHub
repository
There is an internal validation and certification process which will check connector
quality
Independent publishers don’t have to be owners of the API – they can be
anyone: working at a partner, community members, or other enthusiasts.

12. Step 1 – Build a custom connector
• Choose a connector from the “Top Connector
Asks” or think about the products you use on a
regular basis
• Start building in Power Apps, Power Automate,
or Logic Apps through an OpenAPI definition,
Postman V2, or from the in-product wizard

13. Step 2 – Prepare your artifacts
• You will be submitting the following files:
• API Definition (Swagger)
• API Properties
• Readme.md (for documentation)
• Use the paconn CLI to download the artifacts and add metadata such as publisher
and stackOwner.
• Make sure you’ve added:
1. Summaries and descriptions for your parameters
2. Schemas (so people can use the responses of your actions/triggers as
dynamic content)

14. Step 3 – Submit to GitHub
• Create your pull request and give it the title:
• “Connector Name (Independent Publisher)”
• Paste screenshots that show your operations are working within a Flow, that the
entire Flow has succeeded, and the Tests operations section
• You don’t need to submit an icon because we have a generic Independent
Publisher connector icon!
• Upon submission, you will see a “Swagger Validator” run and provide results

15. Step 4 – Follow through with comments
• The certification engineers will test your connector and do manual validations to
make sure that the connector is of high quality.
• This process takes at least 2 weeks but can take a bit more time when there are a
lot of connectors in the pipeline.
• Read the GitHub labels to understand status: Validation phase -> certification
phase -> deployment phase
• Submit an update to the connector anytime after it’s deployed!

16. Step 5 – Time to show off your connector
• Check out your connector in the product!
• Create samples of how to use your connector
• Share your connector from your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts
• Monthly new Independent Publisher connector blog released by Microsoft
• Opportunities to demo
• Bi-weekly PnP Microsoft Dev call on Thursdays
• YouTube video recording for Microsoft Dev channel

17. Tools
Help with building your custom connectors.

18. Tools (1/2)
• Paconn CLI
• Helps with the ALM story of
Custom Connectors
• You can deploy, download and update your
connectors with the CLI through the following
commands:
• Paconn login
• Paconn download
• Paconn create
• Paconn update (*)
• Power Platform Connectors (VS Code Extension)
• Helps you to easily add properties and other
objects in Visual Studio Code by providing
snippets

19. Tools (2/2)
• Power Platform CLI
• ‘pac canvas create’ command generates a canvas app from a custom
connector
• This is great for pro code dev to hand-off their connector to citizen devs /
makers

20. Demo
Download, edit & update the connector.

21. Demo
Generate a Canvas App with pac CLI

22. Resources
Handy links that will help you.

23. Resources (1/2)
• Docs
https://aka.ms/connectors
• Get your connector certified
https://aka.ms/ConnectorCertification
• Power Platform Connectors GitHub repository
https://github.com/Microsoft/PowerPlatformConnectors
• Extend an OpenAPI Definition
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/custom-connectors/openapi-
extensions
• Custom code in custom connectors
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/custom-connectors/write-code

24. Resources (2/2)
• Create a connector from a Postman Collection
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/custom-connectors/define-postman-
collection
• Custom Connectors Coding Standards
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/custom-connectors/coding-standards
• Policy support in Custom Connectors
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/custom-connectors/policy-templates
• Paconn CLI
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/custom-connectors/paconn-cli
• Power Platform Connectors (VS Code Extension)
https://aka.ms/ppc-vscode
• Power Platform CLI
https://aka.ms/powerplatformcli

25. Wrap-up
What now?

26. Wrap-up
• Check out the top connector asks on GitHub and pick one
• Build your first connector
• Test, test, test!
• Spread the word about custom connectors

27. Thanks!
https://twitter.com/laskewitz
https://linkedin.com/in/laskewitz

28. OUR SPONSORS