Automate Tasks in Power Automate Using the CData API Server and Sage 50 UK 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 Sage 50 UK ADO.NET Provider (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers), line-of-business users have a native way to create actions based on Sage 50 UK triggers in Power Automate; the API Server makes it possible for SaaS applications like Power Automate to integrate seamlessly with Sage 50 UK data through data access standards like Swagger and OData. This article shows how to use wizards in Power Automate and the API Server for Sage 50 UK 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 Sage 50 UK 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 Sage 50 UK

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.

Note: Only Sage 50 UK 2012 and above are supported.

The User and Password properties, under the Connection section, must be set to valid Sage 50 UK user credentials. These values will be the same used to log in to the Sage 50 UK software.

Additionally, the URL property, under the Connection section, will need to be set to the address of the company dataset desired. To obtain the address, do the following:

1. If you have not already done so, open the Sage 50 UK software.
2. Click Tools -> Internet Options.
3. Select the SData Settings tab.
4. Click the Details button next to Sage 50 Accounts. A window is displayed containing a list of company names along with the address to their corresponding datasets.
5. Set the URL property to the value in the address field next to the company desired.

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 Sage 50 UK Data to a Flow

You can use the built-in HTTP + Swagger connector to use a wizard to design a Sage 50 UK 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 TradingAccounts" operation.

6. Build the OData query to retrieve Sage 50 UK data. This article defines the following OData filter expression in the $filter box:

   TradingAccountUUID eq 'c2ef66a5-a545-413b-9312-79a53caadbc4'

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

Trigger an Action

You can now work with TradingAccounts 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 Sage 50 UK columns in these boxes.