Rajeev Pentyala – Microsoft Power Platform

Couple of years ago, I’ve blogged Postman tool using Dynamics 365 online. In this article, lets go through the steps to connect Postman tool with Dataverse Web API.

While most of the steps are unchanged, there is a simplified way now to connect to Dataverse Web API with out the need of registering App in Azure AD. Lets get started.

Pre-requisites:

• Power Apps Environment (Subscribe to 30 days trial, if you have not one).
• Postman Desktop App. (Download here)
  • Note: These steps will not work with Postman web version.

Get Dataverse Environment URL:

• Connect to Power Apps portal.
• Select the ‘Environment’ you wish to connect from Postman tool.
• Click on ‘Settings -> Advanced Settings’

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• Copy the URL up to the ‘dynamics.com/’ from the new window as shown below.

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• Add ‘.api’ before ‘.crm.dynamics.com’ to the URL.
  • My Web API url looks as https://orgc721edd9.api.crm.dynamics.com/.

• Copy and Save this URL, which would be used in next steps.

Set up Postman Environment:

We would need ‘Workspace’ and ‘Environment’ to get started with Postman.

• Open the Postman tool and create a new ‘Workspace’ if not having already.

• Click on create a new ‘Environment’.

• In the ‘Add Environment’ screen, we need to add Variables related to ‘Dataverse’ which helps Postman to connect Dataverse Web API.
• Following 6 variables need to be configured.
  • url : Dataverse environment URL captured in previous section.
  • clientid: ’51f81489-12ee-4a9e-aaae-a2591f45987d’. This is special ID which allows to authenticate with out the need of registering App in Azure Active Directiry (AAD).
  • version: 9.2
  • webapiurl: {{url}}/api/data/v{{version}}/
  • callback: https://callbackurl
  • authurl: https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/authorize?resource={{url}}

• Lets add the first Variable “url“. In the ‘INITIAL VALUE’ paste the Dataverse environment url copied in previous section.

• Repeat the step for next 5 variables and looks as below. Click ‘Add’ to save the Postman ‘Environment’.

Authorize Postman to Dataverse Environment:

Now that we have Postman Environment ready with required variables. Lets authorize and connect the Postman to Dataverse Web API. For that we need to complete ‘Authorization‘ and generate a new ‘Access Token’.

• Select to the new Postman ‘Environment’ created in previous section.
• Create a new GET ‘Request’ and select {{webapiurl}} variable as url.

• Click on ‘Authorization’ tab and select ‘TYPE’ as ‘OAuth 2.0’ and click on ‘Get New Access Token’.

• Provide details as below in the ‘Get New Access Token’ screen and click ‘Request Token’.

• In the next screen, provide the Office 365 credentials.

• Post successful authentication, a new ‘Access Token’ gets generated as below. Click ‘Use Token’.

• ‘Access Token’ expires every 1 hour and you would get “401 Unauthorized’ exception upon expiry.
• Click on ‘Get New Access Token’ if the Token expires to get a new Access Token. From 2nd time, Token generates instantly without any further sign-in.

Connect Postman to Dataverse Web API and query:

As we completed ‘Authorization’ and got the ‘Access Token’, we are good to query Dataverse API.

• Create a new GET ‘Request’ and select {{webapiurl}} variable as url.
• In the ‘Authorization’ tab, select the ‘Access Token’ generated and click ‘Send’.
• You should get the Response as below with 200 Status code.

• Below is the sample to fetch Top 3 Account records.

• Refer this documentation to Use Postman to perform operations with the Web API.
• Refer this documentation for more details.

🙂