Connect to Azure Machine Learning (Cortana Analytics)

[LucasLaumans]

Dear all,

could anyone advise me how to setup a connection between Power Apps and my Azure Machine Learning (ML) Web Service which I created based on an Azure Machine Learning model. It seems PowerApps is not equiped with a direct connection to Azure ML webservices.

I tried to setup a custom connection via the Swagger URL but I got an error message " We weren’t able to download the Swagger 2.0 metadata. Please make sure the URL is publicly accessible." I am not an expert on API's and Swagger so I got rather confused.

It would be great if someone could let me know if it is possible to  connect PowerApps to Azure ML, and if this is possible, how this would be realized!

Thanks in advance.

Lucas

[v-micsh-msft]

Hi @LucasLaumans,

I think you are talking about Microsoft Cognitive Services?

Microsoft Cognitive Services

For speech API, currently it is under Preview.

Speaker Recognition API

Besides, there are ideas submitted for Cortana integration or speech:

Cortana integration

Connecting speech api or cortana with powerapps

Status changed to under Review, so I think this API should be added soon, which means there would be direct connection available under PowerApps to use the Speech API.

Besides, for the custom connection via the swagger URL, could you please explain a bit more for it?

PowerApps custom API allows user to add all RESTful APIs as a custom Connection, but would need the corresponding Swagger to "explain" the API.

You may take a look at the blog below first regarding how to build custom API:

Building a Custom API for PowerApps using Azure App Service Web Apps

Regards,

Michael Shao

[LucasLaumans]

Hi @v-micsh-msft,

thanks for you reply. I had a quick look at the links you forwarded regarding Cortana. This all seems to relate to "speech functionalities and cognitive services" indeed, interesting stuff, but not what I am looking at. 🙂

I am looking to correct to a webservice I created based on an Azure Machine Learning Project. For your reference a hyperlink to the Azure ML environment . In this environment I created a recommender system which based on a couple of inputs should advise which product fits best with the customer. The recommender is based on historical data which I analysed in Azure ML. Upon creation of the model in Azure ML, there is an option to create a webservice so that the model can be integrated into different applications. The service is than published  to https://services.azureml.net/webservices/.

Now I would like to connect with PowerApps to the webservice so that I can send parameters from PowerApps to the service and receive the recommendations back based on the parameters provided.

Hope you can point me in the right direction.

Kind Regards,

Lucas

[v-micsh-msft]

Hi @LucasLaumans,

Thanks for the explanation, and sorry for the misleading.

I will take a look in the Azure Machine Learning and see if I could share any suggestions.

Regards,

Michael

[mblythe]

I would start here with the topic on custom APIs: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/tutorials/register-custom-api/. Let me know if you have any questions/run into any issues. I'm also planning a blog post on this, thanks for the insipiration!

[LucasLaumans]

@mblythe, thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I had a look at the documentation but quickly realised it requires some dedicated time from my side to get full comprehension of the topic. (My understanding of API's is still limited at the very moment). Time I am a bit short of at the moment. I was hoping there was an OOTB solution for this Microsoft to Microsoft connection.:-)

I would be very interested to read your blogpost. Hopefully it will bring me some more inspiration! 

Any idea when you are looking to publish the post?

[mblythe]

Hi @LucasLaumans, sorry for the delay here, ended up publishing a Flow post first. I think the right approach for your scenario is to build an Azure API app so that PowerApps can talk to the ML web service through that. I will reply back here when I have a post done on this.

[LucasLaumans]

Hi @mblythe,

did you ever find time to write a post about this topic? I would still be very interested to learn how we could achieve this.

Kind Regards,

Lucas

[mblythe]

Hi Lucas, I didn't write a post on this, but happy to discuss a bit, then we can reply back to this thread. Drop me a line -- I'm mblythe at microsoft.