Logic Apps is a workflow automation service that allows you to automate your routine tasks that might be time-consuming. There is also integration with various kinds of a different software platform, so we can pretty much automate almost anything that we can think of as long as there is an API under the hood.

Workflow of Azure Logic Apps

Azure
Connectors
  • Connectors just correspond to Web APIs behind the scenes. A user could go into the Logic App Service and they could build one of these workflows.
  • They would not know how the API works because the service would abstract that, they would just choose the correct connectors.
  • Microsoft has over 200 built-in connectors for all kinds of operations.
  • So, in a nutshell, connectors correspond to Web APIs.

Triggers and Conditions/Actions

  • We can trigger different operations in the APIs. Suppose we have a connector for Twitter, we could create a trigger for every time a new tweet is sent out to Twitter and then we could grab that information and then based on some conditions, we could take desired actions.
  • Conditions/Actions are optional but we can take the triggers and then send that over to an action and we can go off and send that information to somebody and we can also save it in a database.
  • You can have a connector for Azure blob storage so when someone saves a blob into Azure blob storage, you could have a trigger to send an email notification.

Demo - Connecting Software as a Service application with Logic Apps

Step 1

Go to the Azure portal and create a new resource, a logic app.

Azure

Step 2

Give a name to the logic app, select the subscription, create a new resource group, choose location and keep the log analytics off. Click on create.

Azure

Step 3

Once it gets created, go to the Logic App resource and select the Twitter trigger.

Azure

Step 4

Click on Sign in.

Azure

Step 5

Once you are signed in, it will look something like this.

Azure

Step 6

Select the search text as #Azure or whatever topic you want to receive tweets from. Set the interval time of 5 minutes. So after every 5 minutes, it is going to check the tweets with #Azure or whatever hashtag/text that you have selected. Then click on next step.

Azure

Step 7

Click on "Add an action".

Azure

Step 8

Search for Gmail and select it.

Azure

Step 9

You will be able to see multiple actions. Out of them, select Send Email. It will prompt you to sign in.

Azure

Step 10

Fill out the necessary fields. In the body section, we are going to display the dynamic data, that is the tweet text and who it is tweeted by.

Azure

Step 11

Click on save. So, now we have a basic workflow connecting two different SaaS applications together.

Azure

Step 12

So far in the demo that I have performed, it has fetched 11 tweets, hence making 11 successful runs.

Azure

Step 13

Here is a glimpse of successful runs.

Azure

Step 14

In the resource group, you will find the logic app and Gmail and Twitter API connections as resources themselves. By clicking on Twitter/Gmail, you can edit the API connection.

Azure

Step 15

You can edit the API connection from here if you want to change the authorization.

Azure

Step 16

Check your email and you will find the results mailed to your email ID. You can delete the resource group after successful completion of the demo or else, you will keep receiving emails until and unless you either delete the resources/resource group or your subscription runs out of credits.

So, this is how you can connect two different Software as a Service application with the help of Microsoft Azure Logic Apps.