Built-in connectors in Azure Logic Apps

Članak
05/17/2022
9 min. za čitanje

Built-in connectors provide ways for you to control your workflow's schedule and structure, run your own code, manage or manipulate data, and complete other tasks in your workflows. Different from managed connectors, some built-in connectors aren't tied to a specific service, system, or protocol. For example, you can start almost any workflow on a schedule by using the Recurrence trigger. Or, you can have your workflow wait until called by using the Request trigger. All built-in connectors run natively on the Azure Logic Apps runtime. Some don't require that you create a connection before you use them.

For a smaller number of services, systems and protocols, Azure Logic Apps provides a built-in version alongside the managed version. The number and range of built-in connectors vary based on whether you create a Consumption logic app that runs in multi-tenant Azure Logic Apps, or a Standard logic app that runs in single-tenant Azure Logic Apps. In most cases, the built-in version provides better performance, capabilities, pricing, and so on. In a few cases, some built-in connectors are available only in one logic app type and not the other.

For example, a Standard logic app provides both managed connectors and built-in connectors for Azure Blob, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Event Hubs, Azure Service Bus, DB2, FTP, MQ, SFTP, and SQL Server, while a Consumption logic app doesn't have the built-in versions. A Consumption logic app provides built-in connectors for Azure API Management, Azure App Services, and Batch, while a Standard logic app doesn't have these built-in connectors. For more information, review the following documentation: Managed connectors in Azure Logic Apps and Single-tenant versus multi-tenant and integration service environment (ISE).

This article provides a general overview about built-in connectors in Consumption logic apps versus Standard logic apps.

Built-in connectors in Consumption versus Standard

Consumption	Standard
Azure API Management Azure App Services Azure Functions Azure Logic Apps Batch Control Data Operations Date Time Flat File HTTP Inline Code Integration Account Liquid Request Schedule Variables XML	Azure Blob Azure Cosmos DB Azure Functions Azure Table Storage Control Data Operations Date Time DB2 Event Hubs Flat File FTP HTTP IBM Host File Inline Code Liquid operations MQ Request Schedule Service Bus SFTP SQL Server Variables Workflow operations XML operations

Custom built-in connectors

For Standard logic apps, if a built-connector isn't available for your scenario, you can create your own built-in connector. You can use the same service provider interface implementation that's used by service provider-based built-in connectors, such as SQL Server, Service Bus, Blob Storage, Event Hubs, and Blob Storage. This interface implementation is based on the Azure Functions extensibility model and provides the capability for you to create custom built-in connectors that anyone can use in Standard logic apps.

For more information, review the following documentation:

General built-in connectors

You can use the following built-in connectors to perform general tasks, for example:

Run workflows using custom and advanced schedules. For more information about scheduling, review the Recurrence behavior in the connector overview for Azure Logic Apps.
Organize and control your workflow's structure, for example, using loops and conditions.
Work with variables, dates, data operations, content transformations, and batch operations.
Communicate with other endpoints using HTTP triggers and actions.
Receive and respond to requests.
Call your own functions (Azure Functions) or other Azure Logic Apps workflows that can receive requests, and so on.

Schedule

Recurrence: Trigger a workflow based on the specified recurrence.

Sliding Window
(Consumption logic app only):
Trigger a workflow that needs to handle data in continuous chunks.

Delay: Pause your workflow for the specified duration.

Delay until: Pause your workflow until the specified date and time.

HTTP

Call an HTTP or HTTPS endpoint by using either the HTTP trigger or action.

You can also use these other built-in HTTP triggers and actions:

Request

When a HTTP request is received: Wait for a request from another workflow, app, or service. This trigger makes your workflow callable without having to be checked or polled on a schedule.

Response: Respond to a request received by the When a HTTP request is received trigger in the same workflow.

Batch
(Consumption logic app only)

Batch messages: Trigger a workflow that processes messages in batches.

Send messages to batch: Call an existing workflow that currently starts with a Batch messages trigger.

FTP
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to FTP or FTPS servers you can access from the internet so that you can work with your files and folders.

SFTP-SSH
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to SFTP servers that you can access from the internet by using SSH so that you can work with your files and folders.

Service-based built-in connectors

Connectors for some services provide both built-in connectors and managed connectors, which might differ across these versions.

Azure API Management
(Consumption logic app only)

Call your own triggers and actions in APIs that you define, manage, and publish using Azure API Management.

Note: Not supported when using Consumption tier for API Management.

Azure App Services
(Consumption logic app only)

Call apps that you create and host on Azure App Service, for example, API Apps and Web Apps.

When Swagger is included, the triggers and actions defined by these apps appear like any other first-class triggers and actions in Azure Logic Apps.

Azure Blob
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to your Azure Blob Storage account so you can create and manage blob content.

Azure Cosmos DB
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to Azure Cosmos DB so that you can access and manage Azure Cosmos DB documents.

Azure Functions

Call Azure-hosted functions to run your own code snippets (C# or Node.js) within your workflow.

Azure Logic Apps
(Consumption logic app)

-or-

Workflow operations
(Standard logic app)

Call other workflows that start with the Request trigger named When a HTTP request is received.

Azure Service Bus
(Standard logic app only)

Manage asynchronous messages, queues, sessions, topics, and topic subscriptions.

Azure Table Storage
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to your Azure Storage account so that you can create, update, query, and manage tables.

Event Hubs
(Standard logic app only)

Consume and publish events through an event hub. For example, get output from your logic app with Event Hubs, and then send that output to a real-time analytics provider.

DB2
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to IBM DB2 in the cloud or on-premises. Update a row, get a table, and more.

IBM Host File icon

IBM Host File
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to IBM Host File and generate or parse contents.

MQ
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to IBM MQ on-premises or in Azure to send and receive messages.

SQL Server
(Standard logic app only)

Connect to your SQL Server on premises or an Azure SQL Database in the cloud so that you can manage records, run stored procedures, or perform queries.

Run code from workflows

Azure Logic Apps provides the following built-in actions for running your own code in your workflow:

Azure Functions

Call Azure-hosted functions to run your own code snippets (C# or Node.js) within your workflow.

Inline Code

Execute JavaScript Code: Add and run your own inline JavaScript code snippets within your workflow.

Control workflow

Azure Logic Apps provides the following built-in actions for structuring and controlling the actions in your workflow:

Condition

Evaluate a condition and run different actions based on whether the condition is true or false.

For Each

Perform the same actions on every item in an array.

Name

Group actions into scopes, which get their own status after the actions in the scope finish running.

Switch

Group actions into cases, which are assigned unique values except for the default case. Run only that case whose assigned value matches the result from an expression, object, or token. If no matches exist, run the default case.

Terminate

Stop an actively running logic app workflow.

Until

Repeat actions until the specified condition is true or some state has changed.

Manage or manipulate data

Azure Logic Apps provides the following built-in actions for working with data outputs and their formats:

Data Operations

Perform operations with data.

Compose: Create a single output from multiple inputs with various types.

Create CSV table: Create a comma-separated-value (CSV) table from an array with JSON objects.

Create HTML table: Create an HTML table from an array with JSON objects.

Filter array: Create an array from items in another array that meet your criteria.

Join: Create a string from all items in an array and separate those items with the specified delimiter.

Parse JSON: Create user-friendly tokens from properties and their values in JSON content so that you can use those properties in your workflow.

Select: Create an array with JSON objects by transforming items or values in another array and mapping those items to specified properties.

Date Time action icon

Date Time

Perform operations with timestamps.

Add to time: Add the specified number of units to a timestamp.

Convert time zone: Convert a timestamp from the source time zone to the target time zone.

Current time: Return the current timestamp as a string.

Get future time: Return the current timestamp plus the specified time units.

Get past time: Return the current timestamp minus the specified time units.

Subtract from time: Subtract a number of time units from a timestamp.

Variables

Perform operations with variables.

Append to array variable: Insert a value as the last item in an array stored by a variable.

Append to string variable: Insert a value as the last character in a string stored by a variable.

Decrement variable: Decrease a variable by a constant value.

Increment variable: Increase a variable by a constant value.

Initialize variable: Create a variable and declare its data type and initial value.

Set variable: Assign a different value to an existing variable.

Integration account built-in connectors

Integration account operations specifically support business-to-business (B2B) communication scenarios in Azure Logic Apps. After you create an integration account and define your B2B artifacts, such as trading partners, agreements, maps, and schemas, you can use integration account built-in actions to encode and decode messages, transform content, and more.

Consumption logic apps

Before you use any integration account operations in a Consumption logic app, you have to link your logic app to your integration account.
Standard logic apps

Integration account operations don't require that you link your logic app to your integration account. Instead, you create a connection to your integration account when you add the operation to your Standard logic app workflow. Actually, the built-in Liquid operations and XML operations don't even need an integration account. However, you have to upload Liquid maps, XML maps, or XML schemas through the respective operations in the Azure portal or add these files to your Visual Studio Code project's Artifacts folder using the respective Maps and Schemas folders.

For more information, review the following documentation:

Flat file decoding

Encode XML before sending the content to a trading partner.

Flat file encoding

Decode XML after receiving the content from a trading partner.

Integration Account Artifact Lookup
(Consumption logic app only)

Get custom metadata for artifacts, such as trading partners, agreements, schemas, and so on, in your integration account.