Integrate Freshdesk Data into Automated Tasks with Power Automate

Microsoft Power Automate is an online service that automates events (known as workflows) across the most common apps and services. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Freshdesk data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Connect AI from Power Automate and integrate live Freshdesk data into your workflows and tasks.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Freshdesk, allowing you to easily integrate with live Freshdesk data in Power Automate — without replicating the data. CData Connect AI looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Automate and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Freshdesk, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Freshdesk data.

Configure Freshdesk Connectivity for Power Automate

Connectivity to Freshdesk from Power Automate is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Freshdesk data from Power Automate, we start by creating and configuring a Freshdesk connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Freshdesk" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Freshdesk.

   FreshDesk makes use of basic authentication. To connect to data, set the following connection properties:

   • Domain: Set this to the domain associated with your FreshDesk account. For example, in your URL: https://my_domain.freshdesk.com.
   • APIKey: Set this to the API key associated with your FreshDesk account. To retrieve your API key, Log into your support Portal -> Click on profile picture in the top right corner -> profile settings page. The API key will be available below the change password section to the right.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Freshdesk Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
   
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Freshdesk data from Power Automate.

Connecting to CData Connect AI

To use Connect AI to integrate Freshdesk data into your Power Automate tasks, you need a new SQL Server connection:

1. Log in to Power Automate
2. Click Data -> Connections -> New connection
3. Select SQL Server 👁 Creating a new SQL Server Connection
   
4. In the connection wizard:
   
   
   • Choose to connect directly
   • Set SQL server name to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • Set SQL database name to the name of the Freshdesk connection (e.g. FreshDesk1)
   • Set Username to a Connect AI user (e.g. [email protected])
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   • Click Create 👁 Connecting to Connect AI
     

Integrating Freshdesk Data into Power Automate Tasks

With the connection to Connect AI configured, you are ready to integrate live Freshdesk data into your Power Automate tasks.

1. Log in to Power Automate
2. Click My flows -> New flow and choose to create the flow from blank or template
3. Add (or configure) a SQL Server action (like Get rows) and configure the action to connect to your Connect AI connection
4. Select a Table to work with (from the drop-down menu) and configure any advanced options (like filters, orders, etc) 👁 Getting Freshdesk "Rows"
   
5. Configure any actions to follow and test, then save the flow

SQL Access to Freshdesk Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Freshdesk data from Power Automate tasks. You can create more connections and workflows to drive business — all without replicating Freshdesk data.

To get SQL data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.

Related Power Automate Articles

This article explains how to use CData Connect AI with Power Automate (Online). Check out our other articles for more ways to work with Power Automate Desktop:

• Freshdesk Data in Power Automate Desktop using CData Connect
• Freshdesk Data in Power Automate Desktop via ODBC