Introduction
While developing a Power Apps app, you might find out you need to call a web API created by a high-code, or traditional, development team in your organization. The Power Apps ecosystem already has over a thousand connectors to access resources inside and outside your organization. However, there isn't a built-in connector for you to call web APIs that your organization developed. You have to create a custom connector to fill the gap between Power Apps and web APIs.
In a previous module on how Fusion Development practices help businesses create better applications faster, you met the team at VanArsdel, Ltd. You learned how they plan to use fusion development to fix issues they're experiencing with their Field Inventory Management System.
There are two members on VanArsdel's fusion development team so far, Kiana and Maria. Kiana is a professional developer who creates ASP.NET Core web APIs to use internally and externally. Maria is an inventory management specialist who creates applications with Power Apps to help her with her job responsibilities.
They're working together to create a new Power Apps app that helps manage inventory. Their first task is to display a list of VanArsdel's warehouse locations. The warehouse locations are fetched from a web API and displayed in the Power Apps app.
Learning objectives
In this module, you:
- Learn what a custom connector is, and its use cases
- Build a custom connector from a web API deployed in Visual Studio
- Build a custom connector from a web API deployed in Azure API Management
- Build a custom connector from an OpenAPI document
- Test and use a custom connector to call a web API from a Power Apps app
Prerequisites
- Familiarity with the concept of web (HTTP) APIs.