Dataverse: Custom Automations and APIs

Introduction to Custom Automations in Dataverse

Microsoft Dataverse provides multiple standard automation capabilities, such as Business Rules, Classic Workflows, and Power Automate. However, in complex scenarios, these features might not be enough. This is where personalized automations—Custom Actions and Custom APIs—come into play.

Custom automations allow the definition of advanced, reusable business logic that can integrate with other platform components or external systems. Both technologies work closely with the Dataverse data model and API, ensuring security, consistency, and reusability.

Custom Actions: Modular and Reusable Automations

Custom Actions represent an extension of the traditional Dataverse automation model. Unlike flows or classic processes, they are not automatically triggered by events but must be invoked by other processes or code.

Main Features

• They have no intrinsic trigger: they must be called from Power Automate flows, Business Process Flows, or client/server code.
• They allow defining input and output parameters to exchange data with calling services.
• They automatically create an API method and an event message usable for registering plug-ins or server-side extensions.

In practice, once a Custom Action is created, Dataverse generates an internal endpoint that can be called by flows or plug-ins, facilitating the implementation of shared logic across multiple processes.

Example of Use

A company may create a Custom Action to automatically calculate a personalized discount based on customer type and order volume. This action can be invoked by an approval flow, a plug-in, or a canvas app.

Custom APIs: Personalized Endpoints for Business Logic

Custom APIs are the modern evolution of Custom Actions and allow you to create actual REST-based API methods within Dataverse. Each Custom API can be configured to receive HTTP requests and return structured responses, integrating seamlessly with the Power Platform ecosystem and external applications.

Creation Methods

• Using the Plug-in Registration Tool (included in XrmToolBox or in the official Power Apps CLI).
• Directly from the Power Apps Maker Portal.
• Through C# code or by modifying exported solution files.

Each Custom API can include custom logic written in C# and integrated through plug-ins registered to the event generated by the API creation. This allows for complex operations such as validations, transactions, or communication with external systems.

For more technical details, see the official Microsoft documentation: Custom API - Microsoft Learn.

Architecture and Execution Flow

Custom automations integrate with the Dataverse event-message model. Each time a Custom Action or Custom API is invoked, the system generates a message that passes through the execution pipeline, allowing the insertion of plug-ins or validation steps.

This diagram shows how a request from an application or Power Automate flow travels through the Dataverse infrastructure, triggering the defined logic and finally returning the response to the caller.