Exercise - Create a social media tracker with Azure Logic Apps
In this exercise, we'll create our social media monitoring logic app using the Azure portal. We'll add an X trigger using the workflow designer. The following diagram shows a conceptual view for the app and highlights the part that we'll work on.
Create the logic app resource
First, we need to create the logic app resource in Azure. For this task, we need to find the Logic App resource type in the Azure portal.
Sign in to the Azure portal with your Azure account.
On the Azure portal home page, select Create a resource. On the Create a resource menu, select Integration > Logic App.
The Create Logic App page appears.
Now configure the resource's basic settings, such as subscription, resource group, name, and location.
On the Basics tab, provide the following values for each setting:
Setting Value Project Details Subscription Select your Azure subscription Resource Group Select the Create New link, then create a resource group with a unique name Instance Details Logic app name ShoeTrackerXXXX, replacing XXXX with a random string of numbers or letters Region Select a location nearest you. Type Consumption Leave all other options as their defaults.
Select Review + create, and then select Create.
The deployment pane appears and shows the deployment progress with the resources that Azure creates.
Wait for deployment to successfully finish.
After deployment for your logic app resource completes, select Go to resource.
The Overview page for your logic app appears.
Select a template for your logic app workflow
After you create and deploy a new logic app resource in the Azure portal, you can select a starter template. Let's select the blank template so that we can build our logic app workflow from scratch.
On the Overview page, select Logic app designer in the menu on the left. Scroll down and select the Blank Logic App template in the Templates section.
The workflow designer surface opens for you to add a trigger.
Add an X trigger
Now, you'll add the X trigger and provide values for all required parameters. If you don't have an X account and prefer not to create one, follow the steps that substitute the RSS trigger instead. The downside to using the RSS trigger is that new articles appear infrequently in RSS feeds, so you might have to wait a while before this trigger activates.
On the designer, in the search box, enter X. From the triggers list, select the trigger named When a new tweet is posted.
Substitution: In the search box, enter RSS. From the triggers list, select the RSS trigger named When a feed item is published.
Provide the following information for creating a connection to your X account. When you're done, select Sign in.
Property Required Value Description Connection name Yes ShoeTrackerXConnection The name to give your X connection Authentication Type Yes Bring your own application The authentication type for your connection Substitution: This step doesn't apply to the RSS trigger.
When the X When a new tweet is posted trigger information box appears, you've created a valid connection.
When the authorization box appears, sign in with your X account and password, select Authorize app, and authenticate your credentials if prompted.
This step authorizes and establishes the connection to your X account.
Substitution: This step doesn't apply to the RSS trigger.
After you create a valid connection, the trigger information box reappears.
Provide the following trigger information:
Property Required Value Description Search text Yes Shoe The text to find in the tweet. To search for hashtags, include a hashtag (#) at the start of the search text. (Interval) Yes 1 The number of time units to wait until the next check. For example, an interval of 3 and a frequency of Hour checks for new tweets every three hours. (Frequency) Yes Minute The time unit to use for the polling interval, for example, Second, Minute, Hour, Day, Week, or Month. Add a new parameter No None Any parameters to add to the trigger. Substitution: For the RSS trigger, provide the following information:
Property Required Value Description RSS feed URL Yes https://rss2.feedspot.com/https://www.reuters.com/technologyThe URL for the RSS feed to check Chosen property No UpdatedOn The property to use for determining which articles to return (Interval) Yes 1 The number of time units to wait until the next check. For example, an interval of 3 and a frequency of Hour checks for new articles every three hours. (Frequency) Yes Minute The time unit to use for the polling interval, for example, Second, Minute, Hour, Day, Week, or Month. Add a new parameter No None Any parameters to add to the trigger. When you're done, on the designer toolbar, select Save.
When you save your workflow, Azure automatically publishes your changes to your deployed logic app resource, which is live and running. You can either wait for the trigger to fire, or you can manually activate the trigger.
If you choose to wait, on the Overview pane, find section labeled Trigger history and the text that looks something like Evaluated 12 times, fired 3 times in the last 24 hours. The term evaluated means the condition in your trigger was checked. You should see this number increase once per minute since you're polling every minute. The term fired indicates the number of times the trigger conditions were satisfied. In our case, this number represents how many times the trigger found matching tweets.
To manually activate the trigger, on the designer toolbar, select Run Trigger > Run.
Your logic app workflow now checks X every minute for tweets that contain your search text. If the workflow runs correctly and finishes successfully, a page similar to the designer opens but shows the status and time taken for each step in the workflow run. We'll review this page in more detail later.
Now we'll review the trigger outputs and workflow's run history.
Review the output from the X trigger
Open the logic app resource's main menu, and select Overview.
You might have to scroll to the left to find the main menu, or you can use your browser's search to find the word overview on the page.
On the Overview pane toolbar, select Refresh every minute until the Runs history section shows at least one completed run.
While you wait, you can review the trigger history. On the Overview pane, find the Trigger history section.
The Fired column shows whether the trigger activated because the trigger condition was met. In this example, the condition that trigger finds a matching tweet. So, the trigger fires for each matching tweet.
Return to Runs history section. If at least one completed run appears, select a row for any successful run.
A page named Logic app run opens to show the status for each step in the workflow and the time taken to run each step. From this view, you can also review the data that flowed through each step.
To view the trigger's inputs and outputs, select the X trigger.
The trigger shape expands to show the INPUTS and OUTPUTS sections.
In the OUTPUTS section, under Body, find the text for the matching tweet. To review the complete response in JSON format, select Show raw outputs.