Microsoft 365 Community Power Platform Connectors, 22 Jul 2021

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From YouTube: Publish a connector to the Power Platform with Independent Publisher Connector Program

Description

In this 9-minute developer-focused demo, Natalie Pienkowska highlights a capability announced on July 19th. Anyone can submit a connector to the Microsoft Power Platform, need not be the API owner. Hear about the mission, goals and benefits of the Independent Publisher Connector Program. See a demo of the Airtable connector in Power Automate. Learn about the certification process in GitHub, connectors being developed presently and about how to get plugged into program communications channels. This PnP Community demo is taken from the General Microsoft 365 Development Special Interest Group (SIG) - Bi-weekly sync call recorded on July 22, 2021.

Demo Presenters:
• Natalie Pienkowska (Microsoft) | @NataliePienkow1
• Woong Choi (Independent Publisher)

Supporting documents:
• Repo - Welcome to the Independent Publisher Connector Directory! | https://github.com/microsoft/PowerPlatformConnectors/tree/dev/independent-publisher-connectors
• Blog - New connectors through the Independent Publisher connector program | https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-connectors-through-the-independent-publisher-connector-program/
• Blog - Submit a connector to the Power Platform as an Independent Publisher | https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/submit-a-connector-to-the-power-platform-as-an-independent-publisher/
• Documentation - Independent publisher certification process | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/custom-connectors/certification-submission-ip
• Video - Independent Publisher Connector Program | https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/POWERful-Devs/Power-Platform-Community-Connectors

Learn more:
• Learn more about the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices community at: http://aka.ms/m365pnp
• Visit the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices community YouTube channel: https://aka.ms/m365pnp-videos

A

All right so huge announcement as of monday, anyone can now submit a connector to the power platform. So previously, as you know, you had to own the api in order to.

B

A

Right you had to be one of the owners. You had to be adobe to submit an adobe design connector. We heard your feedback loud and clear over the years that you know why can't anyone else just submit a connector and have it be official on the power platform. So now you can do that um and so just to introduce myself.

A

I am one of the program managers on the connectors team um now called the ecosystem integrations team within the power platform, and I'm also joined here today with wong choy who's, actually, one of the first independent publishers onto our platform, so just to show off his connector- and um you know um you know, ask about his experience and how it went so far, so you can all learn from it.

A

The mission of the independent publisher, connector group is to bring the best together the best people connecting great ideas to data apps and flows right. So we want to go beyond the limitation of allowing only api owners to submit. We want anyone to be able to submit, of course, as long as you know, it's properly tested and it's validated, and we do all that work as the connector certification team, and we also want to make it easier for connector developers to collaborate on connectors right today.

A

You kind of have to download it and send it via email. But now you can just um you know, collaborate straight within the github repository that we have today and so the goals and the benefits of the program right. You get to gain like your name or you know. If you decide to put your consulting company's name or any other publisher name that you can provide, you can gain visibility across all of our platform: products, documentation, demos, videos, blogs, social media posts.

A

Your name will get make a lot of noise here, of course, and you also get the maintainer rights for the connector, so you're, one of the people who officially owns the co, um the code that you're submitting, which is pretty awesome and, of course, like I mentioned, share and collaborate on building custom connectors.

A

You get the official stamp of approval that your connector has been validated tested, and is you know we trust this connector and that anyone can use it and, of course this is an open source contribution. So, if you're in a microsoft mvp your contributions will count here as well cool.

A

So let's go straight into the demo, just to show you all what it looks like in the product and the common misconception here is like. Oh, do I have to download something right? The great thing is these are actually officially added. They all have the same generic icon and they all have independent publisher within parentheses, right after them, which is pretty darn awesome, and you can always see them within the recently added connectors page. So the connector page itself will look something like this and we're planning to grow.

A

This significantly you'll see in my next couple of slides, we're going to add a view and submit reviews system so that people can submit reviews for your connector.

A

Also, you know showing the usage just to get makers excited about using this connector so that you can drive that usage up um as well as you can go straight into github and soon we'll also be adding a submit an issue button within this page for people who aren't comfortable with github and want to submit the issue right away, okay and in terms of how they show up straight within the product.

A

So again you don't have to download or anything just type in- let's say airtable just doing this for the purpose. Just to show you what it looks like right. So there are table connector. Let's say we want to create a record for this, for the purpose of this flow. You'll see it like this.

A

You have the published by and we have wound here- um and you know all this other information, whether it's a description about the connector when it was last updated, you can see it in github, so on and so forth, and it's all under that mit license. So we'll just wanted to give you a chance to you know, introduce yourself, and you know, share any tips that you had um during the development of the connector phase and the certification phase.

B

Hello, everyone, so I'm um from seven sigma. I came as a puff platform developer in seven sigma for one and a half years, almost yep and yeah. I got across right not only and get a chance to create this connector and show it to the public, so people can use it freely.

B

That's the brief. Not only any questions yet.

A

Yeah, how does it feel to have your name in there.

B

It's very good and I'm a bit nervous because there's a lot of people in this call, even though I can't say if I kind of feel that pressure so yeah, it's just great. I always like to come- contribute to the community that people can use it, because some people not comfortable with the technology or they are like they don't they can't have much time on spending all this stuff.

B

It's always been great to contribute to this community that so many people can use it.

A

Thank you awesome great now. Let's just show a really quick. um Just the power platform. Connectors repository has a specific folder for independent publisher connectors, and you see some of them posted here um and we have a description of the directory, the best practices, information on contributing and we're only going to add more and more links here, especially to documentation that we have right.

A

So we have the typical create a custom connector from scratch documentation, but then, in terms of you know the certification process and submitting and all best practices, you can also find that now, in a new link called independent.

C

A

Certification process within certifier connector, which is pretty awesome great. So let's go back to the presentation, so we did the both to both of the demos and so currently we in production, we have seven, you can find um all by these incredible people and coming soon we already have a number on nq as prs in um and github. We have some funny connectors as well. I heard dad jokes in the beginning of the call.

A

There will be a dad jokes connector on its way as well, which is pretty exciting, so we have a lot of fun things coming along and, of course, like any other submissions that we receive, but this is what we have in the pipeline so far, which is pretty darn awesome um and what's next, like I said, we're only going to keep improving to the certification experience based on feedback that we received from publishers, publishers are the ones you know essentially also driving this and helping along the way, which is great.

A

Then we also will have more additions to the connector page. Ui submit an issue button ability to submit review, connectors usage, telemetry so on and so forth. uh Monthly blogs and social media engagements, and then this I put this temporarily but we'll have more information coming along the way there will be a new community call which I'm working with april on um so that's coming, nothing's finalized yet, but we're on their way. So you'll hear more soon and more and more incentives, especially as you know, we um we keep hearing back from the community.

A

We keep hearing the feedback, we are open to anything. um You know this is just phase one of the program, so we're really interested in seeing what you might all need um from us and to help this grow even better.

A

So if you have a custom, connector, you've built or whether you built it like a long time ago- and you probably forgot about it, but you want to publish it, you know publish it on github today um or if you have so that it can actually show up within the product right, so people don't have to download it or anything like that right. The whole purpose of this is to make it a lot easier and to get your name on there.

A

If you don't know which connectors to build the same link about github is also um will be on the last slide and or is in all the blogs as well and yeah. So here are all the more information that you can see and I think david post them all, which is great, um and that concludes my demo.

A

So thank you, everyone for having me- and you can always reach out to me about any questions, and we also have a program called the project coordinators who are part of this program, and so a couple of those are actually have already submitted connectors here. So daniel paul is part of it as well april um ahmad najar and rebecca albers and fausto, which maybe are some some names that you've heard in the past they're also very deeply involved and very gracious for all of their involvement and help throughout this project.

B

So yeah, thank you so much.

C

Awesome, thank you natalie and thank you. Wong appreciate you joining us today and just a mention on that community call that natalie was referencing. The power platform dev community call starting august 25th at 8am, uh keep a lookout on our calendar there on the m365 patterns and practices uh landing page where we have all the other community call listings. We will add it there so you'll be able to get to the recurring calendar, invite as well as the direct teams link to join the call on demand. So again, thank you both very.

B