Time to start another series of blog posts about Logic Apps: Data Mapper Tricks and Tips! Where I will address simple tips and tricks, we can apply to our Data Mapper to be more productive, solve a problem, or help bypass some limitations or constraints.
For this first blog post, I decided to explain a simple workaround that we can use today to help us organize our maps better in order for them to be more readable. Unfortunately, at the moment, I’m writing this post when we add a Function to our map we cannot drag and drop the function into another position in the data mapper area. That means that often when we are applying the mapping rules, they will get overlap as you see in the picture below:
In this case, the To Integer Function is on top of the Concat function, which makes it difficult to read and work inside the Data Mapper. In this sort video, we will see a very useful trick and Tip to organize our functions inside the Logic Apps (Standard) Data Mapper – it may not work in all scenarios but is the best option we have for now.
P.S: Microsoft is working on adding this drag and drop capability, so in the future, we will be able to move the shapes, aka functions, in the mapping area.
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it helpful and want to help me write more content, you can buy (or help buy) my son a Star Wars Lego!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
I have been testing Data Mapper for almost maybe 4 months since the first private previews. Still, I have usually tried the Data Mapper capabilities and not the interaction between Logic Apps Standard workflow and the Data Mapper. Now that I’m preparing and finalizing my session for the Azure Logic Apps Community Day 2023, I’m finding these little headaches in trying to put these pieces working together. You also need to be aware that this behavior and experience may change in the future since DaTa Mapper is still in preview.
So, while I was trying to call a transformation created by the new Data Mapper, in this case, a JSON to JSON transformation, running locally in my machine, I was always getting this really annoying and non-sense error since it doesn’t provide any real and valuable help or insight on the issue we are facing:
undefined. undefined
Sometimes I think the Microsoft developer team likes that I write all these Errors and Warnings, Causes and Solutions blog posts, or they are just teasing us.
I was surprised to see this error since I just finished developing my map, and I had successfully tested it on the Data Mapper editor.
And that you can see in action in this video of Kent Weare:
Solution
For the map to run successfully in runtime, within your local.settings.json file in your logic apps standard project, ensure you have the following property configuration:
FUNCTIONS_WORKER_RUNTIME property set to dotnet-isolated.
And add the AzureWebJobsFeatureFlags property with the value: EnableMultiLanguageWorker
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it helpful and want to help me write more content, you can buy (or help buy) my son a Star Wars Lego!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
I have been developing Logic App Standard for a long time and never had an issue running them locally, as far as I remember, until a few months ago. I never pay too much attention because I was not running them locally, and I didn’t block my ability to develop my solutions or workflows.
However, this week, while developing my demos for the Azure Logic Apps Community Day 2023 event, I had the need to test them locally, and every time I try to run them locally by either:
Start Debugging
Or Run Without Debugging
I was getting the following error:
Failed to find “func host start” task.
Cause
To be honest, I don’t know because I had all the pre-requirements installed, but I guess, and this is just me guessing, that some Azure Function extension update broke some configuration between these to extensions.
Solution
I know that you probably will not like it… but after spending a few hours, I give up and when to a drastic approach – this one – that solved the problem.
To solve this issue, you need to:
Uninstall all Azure Functions extension dependencies.
In my case, the Azure Logic Apps – Data Mapper and Azure Logic Apps (Standard) extensions
Uninstall the Azure Functions extension.
Restart Visual Studio Code
Install all the extensions again, in my case:
Azure Function
Azure Logic Apps (Standard)
Azure Logic Apps – Data Mapper
Just to be in a safe state, restart Visual Studio Code again.
After that I was able to run my workflow locally without any issue.
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it helpful and want to help me write more content, you can buy (or help buy) my son a Star Wars Lego!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
We all must love this Logic App team for engagement with the community over the last few months! Always trying to listen to the client and community feedback in order for them to prioritize investments in Logic Apps based on our real needs.
And once again, the Logic App team wants to listen to our feedback! And this time, on the topic we all developers or consultants were also anxiously waiting for Developer Experience and Tools. At least I was!
Logic Apps Developer Experience and Tools Survey
With this new survey, the Logic App team seeks feedback on how you guys want to have or imagine having XML Support inside Logic Apps. They want to learn about your needs and feedback on the current Logic Apps workflows support for XML and to provide us information about potential scenarios that you want to see covered around XML and SOAP:
Which Logic Apps model(s) are you using today?
Which tools have you used to develop Logic Apps?
When developing Logic Apps Standard, which environment do you mainly use?
In what scenarios do you use Azure portal more for developing Logic Apps Standard?
Rank the new capabilities of Azure Portal experience for Logic Apps Standard.
If you can choose one IDE for developing Logic Apps Standard locally, which IDE do you want to use? Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio.
Why do you want to use Visual Studio instead of VS Code for developing Logic Apps Standard locally?
Rank the new capabilities of IDE experience for Logic Apps Standard.
THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY! Don’t complain that the developing experience is not that good or you prefer using Visual Studio rather than Visual Studio Code for developing Logic Apps in the future if you don’t fill out this form. The survey does not take long to respond to, and this is your opportunity to try to change and influence the next set of features.
I did my part!
Please fill out the following survey to help Azure Logic Apps:
On a final note, congratulations to the Logic App team for being so engaged with the community!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
Azure REST APIs are service endpoints that support sets of HTTP operations (methods), which provide create, retrieve, update, or delete access to all Azure service’s resources. You may know, and many of you may be familiar with Logic Apps Consumption REST APIs that are very well documented by Microsoft here: Azure Logic Apps.
However, for those who didn’t know about this, I recommend you go there and have a look. You may find them very useful for achieving many things and automating certain tasks. One of these cases is the strategy I documented to get the error message from a particular failure inside Logic App Consumption, where I invoke the Get Workflow Run method to get the run history of a particular run in order to extract the correct error message. You can read more about it here: How to get the Error Message with Logic App Try-Catch (Part II) – Using an Azure Function.
Another great thing about this Microsoft REST APIs documentation is the availability to try them directly from the documentation page. But unfortunately, these REST APIs can be applied only to Logic Apps Consumption. There isn’t any official REST APIs documentation available for Logic Apps Standard, and yes, they are different. A few months ago I decided to start documenting the new Logic Apps Standard REST APIs publishing three blog posts:
But that were only a few parts of the existing RESP APIs.
This whitepaper will give you a detailed understanding of the following:
A short introduction to Logic App Consumption REST APIs.
Comprehensive details about Logic Apps Standard REST APIs:
Workflow operations: For example, it provides operations for creating and managing workflows.
Workflow Runs operations: For example, it provides operations for listing and canceling workflow runs.
Workflow Run Actions operations: For example, it provides operations for lists of workflow run actions.
Workflow Versions operations: For example, it provides operations for lists of workflow versions.
Workflow Triggers operations: For example, it provides operations for listing and running workflow triggers.
Workflow Trigger Histories operations: For example, it provides operations for listening workflow trigger histories.
Logic App operations: For example, it provides that you can apply at the Logic App Standard App level.
App Service Plans: For example, it lists App Service Plan REST APIs operations that are interested in using bind with Logic App Standard.
Where can I download it?
You can download the whitepaper here:
I hope you enjoy reading this paper and any comments or suggestions are welcome.
Big thanks to my team member Luis Rigueira for contributing to this whitepaper as a Co-Author!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
I had the pleasure of being invited a few weeks ago by my friend – and now Microsoft Principal Product Manager – Azure Logic Apps – Kent Weare to record a special episode on Logic Apps Development Tips and Tricks on his YouTube channel.
First of all, if you are unaware of his YouTube channel and you like or are interested in Azure Integration Services, I suggest you follow his channel, which is full of fantastic content. You can check and follow his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@KentWeare
In this episode, we are going to discuss some of the most basic and important Logic Apps development best practices, tips, and tricks:
Naming Conventions, which will include Logic App, Action, and Connectors naming conventions
Error Handling and how to retrieve the error message inside Logic Apps
For Each Parallelism
Fixing API Connections and why you should care about this.
and comparing Logic Apps (Standard) and Azure Logic Apps (Consumption)
You can see the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLzplA1xVaM&t=479s
Let me know what you think about these Best practices, tips, and tricks or what you would like to be addressed in my series of blogs about this topic.
You can check all my tips and tricks here:
And of course, stay tuned for more Logic App Best practices, Tips, and Tricks.
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines are a practice focused on improving software delivery using a DevOps approach.?
A CI/CD pipeline may sound like overhead, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a runnable specification of the steps that any developer needs to perform to deliver a new software product version. In the absence of an automated pipeline, Engineers would still need to perform these steps manually and, therefore, be far less productive.
This is a must to have when deploying resources to Azure! Especially for non-development environments.
In this whitepaper, I will address and explain in a detailed way a complete guide for automating the implementation of Logic Apps Standard using Azure DevOps Pipelines.
I will explain in detail all the basic things you have to know, from the creation of a Logic App Standard on Visual Studio Code to everything you need to create and configure inside DevOps to archive the implementation of the CI/CD process.
What’s in store for you?
This whitepaper will give you a detailed understanding of the following:
An introduction to:
What are Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD)?
What are CI/CD Pipelines?
What is Azure DevOps?
Create an organization or project collection in Azure DevOps
Create a project in Azure DevOps
Building your Logic App Standard from scratch
Publish your code from Visual Studio Code
A step-by-step approach to building Azure Pipelines
A step-by-step approach to building Azure Release Pipelines
