Automate Tasks in Power Automate Using the CData API Server and Reckon ADO.NET Provider

Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) makes it easy to automate tasks that involve data from multiple systems, on premises or in the cloud. With the CData API Server and Reckon ADO.NET Provider (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers), line-of-business users have a native way to create actions based on Reckon triggers in Power Automate; the API Server makes it possible for SaaS applications like Power Automate to integrate seamlessly with Reckon data through data access standards like Swagger and OData. This article shows how to use wizards in Power Automate and the API Server for Reckon to create a trigger -- entities that match search criteria -- and send an email based on the results.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure and Swagger-enabled Reckon APIs:

Deploy

The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.

The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.

Connect to Reckon

After you deploy, provide authentication values and other connection properties by clicking Settings -> Connections in the API Server administration console. You can then choose the entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.

When you are connecting to a local Reckon instance, you do not need to set any connection properties.

Requests to Reckon are made through the Remote Connector. The Remote Connector runs on the same machine as Reckon and accepts connections through a lightweight, embedded Web server. The server supports SSL/TLS, enabling users to connect securely from remote machines.

The first time you connect to your company file, you will need to authorize the Remote Connector with Reckon. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide.

You will also need to enable CORS and define the following sections on the Settings -> Server page. As an alternative, you can select the option to allow all domains without '*'.

1. Access-Control-Allow-Origin: Set this to a value of '*' or specify the domains that are allowed to connect.
2. Access-Control-Allow-Methods: Set this to a value of "GET,PUT,POST,OPTIONS".
3. Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Set this to "x-ms-client-request-id, authorization, content-type".

Authorize API Server Users

After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL. Access can also be restricted by IP address; access is restricted to only the local machine by default.

For simplicity, we will allow the authtoken for API users to be passed in the URL. You will need to add a setting in the Application section of the settings.cfg file, located in the data directory. On Windows, this is the app_data subfolder in the application root. In the Java edition, the location of the data directory depends on your operation system:

1. Windows: C:\ProgramData\CData
2. Unix or Mac OS X: ~/cdata

Add Reckon Data to a Flow

You can use the built-in HTTP + Swagger connector to use a wizard to design a Reckon process flow:

1. In Power Automate, click My Flows -> Create from Blank.
2. Select the Recurrence action and select a time interval for sending emails. This article uses 1 day.
3. Add an HTTP + Swagger action by searching for Swagger.
4. Enter the URL to the Swagger metadata document: https://MySite:MyPort/api.rsc/@MyAuthtoken/$oas
5. Select the "Return Customers" operation.

6. Build the OData query to retrieve Reckon data. This article defines the following OData filter expression in the $filter box:

   Type eq 'Commercial'

   See the API Server help documentation for more on filtering and examples of the supported OData.

Trigger an Action

You can now work with Customers entities in your process flow. Follow the steps to send an automated email:

1. Add an SMTP - Send Email action.
2. Enter the address and credentials for the SMTP server and name the connection. Be sure to enable encryption if supported by your server.
3. Enter the message headers and body. You can add Reckon columns in these boxes.