Have you noticed a new Action in the Business Central connector? 👀  It started rolling out early December 2021. 

I recently worked on a project where I needed to use this function on 3 different custom API’s to pull dynamic content from one API to pass it to another.  The update that I did would normally take me about 12 hours in all with testing etc.  The “Find” action allowed me to complete this part of my project in  T H R E E hours!!!!  I was so excited that I decided to write this blog to share the areas you save massive time, and compare how an HTTP Request vs Find Action look in Power Automate.

This new action was first announced at Directions EMEA in October 2021.  I was particularly excited about this new functionality because I shared with, Blazej Kotelko, a few months ago, how we can currently do this in Power Automate using Http request on the V2 API’s, but that it takes some extra work to get that. 

The biggest reason I do the HTTP Request is to have a consolidated Json Body to filter down to say a specific Order Number, GUID, etc.  This of course leads to a series of parsing data and cleaning things up so I have usable dynamic fields to pass through my flow. 

To your everyday developer this is not a big deal.  However, I like to believe that surely there are others in this world who loathe parsing Json, Json formatting, schemas, etc., etc.  I don’t speak this “language” very well.  I know enough to get by, but I’m not great at the specifics of these 👇 🤷‍♀️

  { [ : ; , ”  

Misplace one of these pesky characters, I can easily end up spending hours trying to figure out what I did wrong, and why it’s not working. 95% of my issues with flows result in parsing issues.  Of course, I need to skill up to overcome this, but who has time!?!? 

THIS is why I am so thrilled with the new “Find” action.  It allows me to use the BC connector and accomplish the same task much quicker, and it means I don’t have to parse the body to get to the arrays.  I can just start to work with the objects and arrays.  Now, I still have to parse the arrays, but the less I have to do the better.  I have less of a chance to get in my own way before I can access the values in an array.  

Another reason this is such a huge time saver is you don’t have to mess with the URL in the HTTP request.  Piecing this together can take up time as well. 

Josh Anglesea also made a solid point on time saving with using the Business Central connector opposed to the HTTP request, and Oauth2.  You can just assign the designated account that has been registered and be done with it.  

Let’s take a look at the differences! 🧐

Being able to use the connector to select your environment, company, and API (including custom API’s), opposed to formatting the proper URL string is SOOO much easier as well!

HTTP REQUEST APPROACH

Using the HTTP request your flow will look something like this

BUSINESS CENTRAL CONNECTOR FIND ACTION APPROACH

Using the new Find action, the same flow looks more like this:

I hope you have found this blog helpful in understanding what a game-changer this new action is for the Business Central connector. This makes it easier to integrate data from siloed systems in and out of Business Central, automatically, without heavy development. I highly recommend you try it out for yourself to really appreciate how much time you will save.  I can’t wait to hear about all the brilliant solutions you come up!