Integrate Live HCL Domino Data into Custom Business Apps Built in Power Apps

Power Apps is a service for building and using custom business apps that connect to your data and work across the web and mobile — without the time and expense of custom software development. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to HCL Domino data from the apps you build using Power Apps. This article shows how to connect to Connect Cloud from Power Apps and build an app based on live HCL Domino data.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for HCL Domino, allowing you to easily integrate with live HCL Domino data in Power Apps — without replicating the data. CData Connect Cloud looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Apps and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to HCL Domino, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return HCL Domino data.

Configure HCL Domino Connectivity for Power Apps

Connectivity to HCL Domino from Power Apps is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with HCL Domino data from Power Apps, we start by creating and configuring a HCL Domino connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "HCL Domino" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to HCL Domino.

   Prerequisites

   The connector requires the Proton component to be installed. Normally, Proton is distributed as part of the AppDev pack. See the HCL documentation for instructions on acquiring and installing Proton or the AppDev pack.

   Once the Proton service is installed and running, you will also need to create a user account and download its Internet certificate. This certificate can be used to set the connector certificate connection properties.

   Authenticating to Domino

   • Server: The name or IP address of the server running Domino with the Proton service.
   • Port: The port number that the Proton service is listening on.
   • Database: The name of the database file, including the .nsf extension.
   • SSLClientCertType: This must match the format of the certificate file. Typically this will be either PEMKEY_FILE for .pem certificates or PFXFILE for .pfx certificates.
   • SSLClientCert: The path to the certificate file.
   • SSLServerCert: This can be set to (*) if you trust the server. This is usually the case, but if you want to perform SSL validation, you may provide a certificate or thumbprint instead. See the documentation for SSLServerCert for details.

   Additional Server Configuration

   The connector supports querying Domino views if any are defined. Before views can be queried by the connector they must be registered with the design catalog.

   Please refer to the Catalog Administration section of the AppDev pack documentation for details on how to do this.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add HCL Domino Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to HCL Domino data from Power Apps.

Connecting to CData Connect Cloud

To use Connect Cloud to integrate HCL Domino data into your Power Apps, you need a new SQL Server connection:

1. Log in to Power Apps
2. Click Dataverse -> Connections -> New connection
3. Select SQL Server
4. In the connection wizard:
   
   
   • Choose to connect directly
   • Set SQL server name to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • Set SQL database name to the name of the HCL Domino connection (e.g. Domino1)
   • Set Username to a Connect Cloud user (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   • Click Create

Building a Data-Centric App for HCL Domino Data

With the connection to Connect Cloud configured, you are ready to integrate live HCL Domino data into the apps you build in Power Apps.

1. Log in to Power Apps
2. Click Create and select "SQL"
3. Select the SQL Server connection you created
4. Search for or choose a table to work with
5. Click Connect
6. Customize the newly created app just like you would any other, including changing the layout and setting the fields exposed in BrowseScreen, DetailScreen, and EditScreen

At this point, you have an app with read access to live HCL Domino data that you can save and publish for use within your organization.

SQL Access to HCL Domino Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live HCL Domino data from Microsoft Power Apps. You can create more connections and apps to drive business — all without replicating HCL Domino data.

To get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect Cloud.