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Custom Connector from OpenAPI - Action View

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Posted on by Stevo1977

Hello,

When building a custom connector from an existing OpenAPI file that uses composed objects, it would be nice if the parent object was shown. For example, in the screenshot, I need to hover over the objects to see the parent, I am hovering over $.description.value.

It becomes worse when you look at the action it created, it does not show you the parent in any way, even as a hover. This makes it very difficult to fill out and use.

If I use the 'Peek code' option I can see the parent values, but that does not help me on the previous window, and takes a lot of guess work:

This is another example, it is not apparent that the marked fields are all sub fields of a parent object:

This is the definition of the fields above:

Again, you can see this if, I fill out values and use "Peek code":

Does anyone know of a way to show more detail at the action level so this will be less of a struggle to fill out?

Thanks

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Jay-Encodian 2,920 on at

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@Stevo1977

Can you explain what you are trying to achieve in the UI?

The flow UI doesn't render hierarchical values... an action has a flat set of properties.

You can use a dynamic schema to render properties based in the selection of another property, but in essenece all of the properties are still flat to the parent action, you are just showing / hiding properties based on the selection of an enum.

HTH

Jay

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Stevo1977 10 on at

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I would like to see some kind of identifier on a value of its parent name, these are all similar child elements of parent objects (ex: owner_name.value, description.value, id.value, contact_name.value, contact_email.value, etc...) but without any hint of the parent I cannot distinguish what I am filling out without switching back and fourth with the 'Peek code'. The same problem occurs when it flattens to objects that have the same elements, for instance say object-a and object-b both have a name child element, the UI will show name, name and not object-a.name object-b.name... it functionally works but the UX of filling it out feels broken.

Thanks,
Steve

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Jay-Encodian 2,920 on at

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Hi @Stevo1977

Sorry, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense (could be me), I've built several custom connectors personally and helped with the initial delivery of the Encodian connector.

Anyhow... all of the connectors swagger def's are open-sourced so I'd recommend you find an action within Power Automate which mimic's the behavior you are after and then explore the swagger def to help you build yours. Noting; to have an action responsively change the options in the UI relating other selected options (check out the Encodian 'Create Barcode' action) you need to use a dynamic schema... you'll need to ensure your API is setup to receive requests and return dynamic schema's relating to the selected options.

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Stevo1977 10 on at

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That is my problem too, I don't know how to explain it.. maybe if I show swagger behind it... after everything is setup and I go to use the connector, on the action view all I see is value, value, value value, value.... and just don't see the contact_email, contact_id, contact_name, etc...

when it is flattened I have no way of knowing which value relates to contact_name, which value relates to description

if that makes anything clearer

thanks,
Steve

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Jay-Encodian 2,920 on at

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@Stevo1977

I don't think your swagger def is setup correctly for P/A... have you read through the documentation?: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/custom-connectors/define-blank

From experience; the best way to work out how your swagger def should work is to find an action with the desired behavior and then check swagger defs in the open source repo

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Stevo1977 10 on at

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Thanks for your time, patience and documentation on the matter. I did not mention it is an already working solution, I have already create a couple of connectors, the swagger definitions are derived from protobuf messages, I am not editing the actions manually after an import, not on 50 fields that is too much effort. I will just continue using 'Peek code' a whole lot, hours of editing and testing outweighs the need for the visual queue I am looking for in the UI each time there is a change to the protobuf messages that gets re-imported.

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Stevo1977 10 on at

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If this all made sense to someone out there and you are having the same issue, this was my workaround.

Since it does not display nested JSON objects with any meaningful information of the parent (unless it is an array or a root level field) in the UI when you reach the point of using a connector action, I have reworked my code to use protobuf 2 instead of 3 which (for me) translates into having less nested JSON objects.

So instead of seeing value, value, value for the marked items under protobuf 3 which were actually (access_level_id.value, asset_no.value, assignee_id.value) they no longer objects and are root level fields making them easier to identify from the connector action UI.

Thanks,
Steve

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Stevo1977 10 on at

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Just a note that this is only a semi-workaround since it still happens to the nested objects.

so now I have both a ConfigurationItem.Id and ConfigurationItem.Type.Id in the backend, in the UI I have id, id with no real way of telling them apart other than Peek Code

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