PL 400 : create a definition for the API (Create custom connectors)

API gives the advantage of communication between two software products or applications. In the past, there was a challenge between the two applications especially in cross platform. API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface, which acts as an intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. APIs allow different platforms, applications and systems to communicate and share information with each other.

API means Application Programming Interface.


In a power platform, the connector is the key component that helps to connect different types of platforms to the power platform. There are over 350 connectors available in the Power Platform that help talk to Microsoft Power Automate, Microsoft Power Apps, and Azure Logic Apps. It provides users with a way to link their accounts and leverage a set of pre-built actions and triggers to build their apps and workflows.
A connector is a proxy or a wrapper around an API.

According to Microsoft:
A custom connector is a wrapper around a REST API (Logic Apps also supports SOAP APIs) that allows Logic Apps, Power Automate, or Power Apps to communicate with that REST or SOAP API.

Sure, a custom connector works as a communication point to talk to all kinds of platforms, applications, and more, but it needs to define a set of protocols, standards, and methods. There are many ways to receive and respond to requests, so a custom connector defines an API that helps to understand how the communication interacts. This definition can be separated with two categories; Technical specification that describes the data exchange options between solutions with a specification made as a request for processing and data delivery protocols. The other API specification is; Which defines standardized data exchange between web services.

After  API Authentication, we need to define the API definition, so that Logic Apps, Power Automate, or Power Apps can communicate with API. The following approaches are supported:

  • An OpenAPI definition (formerly known as a Swagger file)
  • A Postman collection
  • Start from scratch using the custom connector portal ( Power Automate and Power Apps only)



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