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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/odata-cloud-powerapps.rst

⇱ Integrate Live OData Services into Custom Business Apps Built in Power Apps

Integrate Live OData Services into Custom Business Apps Built in Power Apps

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to OData services and integrate live OData services into apps built in Microsoft Power Apps.

Power Apps is a service for building and using custom business apps that connect to your data and work across the web and mobile — without the time and expense of custom software development. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to OData services from the apps you build using Power Apps. This article shows how to connect to Connect AI from Power Apps and build an app based on live OData services.

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

About OData Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live OData services data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Access OData versions 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0, working with legacy services and the latest features and capabilities.
  • Leverage advanced query options, including $filter, $select, and $expand, enhancing data retrieval from 3rd party tools.
  • Use Server-side execution of aggregation and grouping to minimize data transfer and boost performance.
  • Authenticate securely using a variety of schemes, including Azure AD, digest, negotiate, NTLM, OAuth, and more means secure authentication with every connection.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage OData service entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

Customers use CData's solutions to regularly integrate their OData services with preferred tools, such as Power BI, MicroStrategy, or Tableau, and to replicate data from OData services to their databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Configure OData Connectivity for Power Apps

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "OData" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to OData.

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid OData user credentials. In addition, specify a URL to a valid OData server organization root or OData services file.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add OData 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 OData services from Power Apps.

Connecting to CData Connect AI

To use Connect AI to integrate OData services into your Power Apps, you need a new SQL Server connection:

  1. Log in to Power Apps
  2. Click Dataverse -> 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 OData connection (e.g. OData1)
    • 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

Building a Data-Centric App for OData Services

With the connection to Connect AI configured, you are ready to integrate live OData services into the apps you build in Power Apps.

  1. Log in to Power Apps
  2. Click Create and select "SQL" 👁 Creating a new app from data
  3. Select the SQL Server connection you created
  4. Search for or choose a table to work with
  5. Click Connect 👁 Connecting to OData services
  6. Customize the newly created app just like you would any other, including changing the layout and setting the fields exposed in BrowseScreen, DetailScreen, and EditScreen 👁 Customizing the OData services app

At this point, you have an app with read and write access to live OData services that you can save and publish for use within your organization.

SQL Access to OData Services from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live OData services from Microsoft Power Apps. You can create more connections and apps to drive business — all without replicating OData services.

To get real-time 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.