App Broker integration with MS Power Platform?

[Ralph_Crowley]

We've moved away from using Workflow Manager as our SW packaging solution to instead using MS Power Platform. We are curious if there is any native support between App Broker and MS Power Platform as we're exploring building additional workflows between our packaging solution & SW delivery (App Store/ App Broker). thxs

[jdempsey]

There is no native integration between App Portal/Broker and Microsoft Power Platform; however, if you have an on-premises data gateway, you may still be able to connect to App Broker APIs manually with either a custom connector or using the HTTP action within a flow.

Disclaimer: I have not done anything with an on-premises data gateway.  Just pointing out that since App Portal/Broker is generally not exposed to the internet, you would need some way to connect from cloud to on-prem if your intent is to create/modify catalog items from Microsoft Power Platform.

[Ralph_Crowley]

thanks Jim - Would you happen to know if Power Platform integration might be on the App Broker roadmap? We were initially exploring using Power Platform as a potential option to handle bulk SWD, since there are limitations for bulk delivery within App Broker. However the current licensing costs for PP premium are certainly a deterrent for that option.

[jdempsey]

I don't believe there is anything on the product roadmap for this, but there are others (Flexera Product Management) that follow this forum that would be in a better place to comment.  I would say it's probably unlikely in the context of replacing Workflow Manager for packaging/publishing flows, but where it could be more likely would be in the context of general catalog items used for provisioning of SaaS entitlements or other similar flows that are well-suited for Power Automate.  Even that is probably not currently on the roadmap or backlog, but I could see it being of interest to a larger audience.  Whatever it is you're looking for, I would encourage you to log something on our Ideas page with detailed business requirements.

[Ralph_Crowley]

Sorry if I wasn't clear in the ask - we're not looking for anything in terms of replacing Workflow Manager - We've got that part covered. We're looking for an alternative (enhancement) beyond what App Broker offers today in terms of both the Group Catalog feature or the option to input a list of target devices. We're looking to empower our application teams to self-manage their enterprise deployments by leveraging App Broker (or at least the APIs) vs providing them access to ConfigMgr / InTune. We wanted to inquire if App Broker could possibly be leveraged as the front end portal to submit their bulk SW deployments as self-services vs engaging our operations team. 

[jdempsey]

I'm perhaps still not clear on the exact use case, but we do support a request on behalf feature called "Request to manual list", which allows you to paste in a list of target devices.  App Portal will then try to resolve that list of devices against its known computer list and will submit a separate request (within a single order) for each known device.  However, there are other configuration settings in App Portal that limit how many items can be added to the cart in a single order.  While you could increase those limits, I'm not sure if you'd run into performance issues, depending on how many machines you are trying to deploy to at once.  App Portal definitely wasn't intended to be used for bulk software distribution.  I guess in this case, I'm not clear where Power Platform comes into play.