Business Central Custom Connector for standard API

A few weeks back I sent out the below tweet:

The results in Power Apps are similar, the method is just different. Back to my tweet . A couple of responses came back but it didn’t result in a definitive answer. Made me consider is this even something I should concern my time with? This is where this post comes into play!

Personally, I think the standard BC API can be a bit too complex for certain aspects of the Power Platform. Take the Power Apps patch() function, for example – it expects a nice and neat tabular data source to work with. But are the standard BC API pages really designed to provide that? If you check out the documentation link, you’ll see a sample HTTP request. I’ve included a brief example below. Essentially, this request allows you to get to the final destination table by using the reference of another table. However, PowerApps and Power Automate don’t always follow those rules. So, is this the best approach? We can’t exactly change the approach, but we can explore some alternatives, right? :

POST businesscentralPrefix/companies({id})/journalLines({id})/dimensionSetLines({id})

To overcome the complexities of the standard BC API when working with the Power Platform, my go-to solution is to use a Power Platform custom connector. With this option, you can define the rules and work around the limitations of PowerApps or Power Automate’s standard functions. I found this blog post that provided crucial insights into how to use OAuth2.0 with a Power Platform custom connector for BC: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Community-Blog/How-to-use-OAuth2-0-in-Power-Automate-Custom-Connector/ba-p/1260216

The swagger definition is available on my GitHub (github_link), so you can just import that, if you agree with my approach. This could be applied as an alternative to having to create a Power Automate flow which uses HTTP (previous post explaining this concept: previous_post). While it’s not necessarily a bad approach to use HTTP, it’s always nice to have all your working parts in one place, isn’t it? Additionally, with the custom connector, you can avoid having to perform OAuth2 within the flow, as it’s already built into the connector.

Does this method apply to other parts of the BC API setup? Yes, in short. Here are a few other pages which could use this very same custom connector approach:

• Attachments (just for Power Apps – Power Automate works ok): – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/api-reference/v2.0/api/dynamics_attachment_create
• Time registration, via Employee record: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/api-reference/v2.0/api/dynamics_timeregistrationentry_create
• Pictures (just for Power Apps – Power Automate works ok): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/api-reference/v2.0/api/dynamics_picture_update
• Update applyvendorentry : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/api-reference/v2.0/api/dynamics_applyvendorentry_update