Integrate external Data (REST API)

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Posted on by carl1to

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I'm currently facing the problem, that I want to integrate external data into my model-driven app.

Data = The company's employees

Source = REST API (oauth)

How would you bring this data into the model-driven app?

- Virtual Table --> quite complicated today, but maybe simpler after ReleaseWave2.2022

- Dataflow --> is this possible with oauth?

- CloudFlow with HTTP action / custom connector

Thoughts and suggestions are very welcome!

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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João Santos 323 on at

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Hi,
I think this might depend on what you want to use the data for and how you intend to save it.
Do you want to duplicate the data from the other system? Then you'll need to at least one custom table/entity to store the Employee data and use some integration (e.g. Power Automate flow) to connect to the REST API and pull the data and save it in Dataverse. You'd then need to think about keeping it up to date but the flow could just run daily to keep records up to date.

You could just create a Virtual Table/Entity that links to the REST endpoint, you won't have to worry about integration but that comes with some limitations as well in terms of what you can do with them on the Dataverse side I think.

Having had to do something similar in the past, I just created a table structure in Dataverse and set up a daily integration to keep records up to date. The master data was the other system so that made things easier since the copied fields would be read only from the DV side.

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Mira Ghaly 11,413 Moderator on at

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@carl1to

Is it just a one time Data loading or it is a continuous syncing?

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carl1to 208 on at

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Hi @joaodsantos
Thank you for your reply.

I would use the data only read in DV, so the requirement for syncing would be one-way (the same as your requirement from the past).

Did you use HTTP action in your cloud flow or did you create a custom connector for that?

I clearly see the benefit from having a native DV table for this integration. I'm not sure how limited you are with the VirtualTables with searching / relationships etc....

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carl1to 208 on at

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Hi @Mira_Ghaly

This would be a permanent syncing. not real-time but maybe once a day.
Data is only needed read-only --> one-way sync.

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Mira Ghaly 11,413 Moderator on at

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@carl1to

I would say using cloud flow with http action or custom connector should be your best approach.

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João Santos 323 on at

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This was a few years ago and at the time we used an SSIS Job with KingswaySoft to extract and store it in DV. We had the employee entity and a couple extra entities to help with structure and reporting.
If I were to do it today and source system had a REST API (it didn't at the time) I'd just use Power Automate (or Logic Apps) with a custom connector.
HTTP Action also works of course.

Regarding Virtual Tables, I have to admit I haven't kept up to date with that functionality and its roadmap features, but at the time virtual tables didn't allow for relationships with other tables in the system. So you could bring data into DV but it would be just read only and couldn't actually link it to anything. That was limiting on the reporting and processes customer was asking for, so integrating the data once a day was the obvious solution.

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