Power Automate includes a dedicated Business Central connector that lets you read and write BC data from automated flows. The connector uses the Business Central API under the hood, so the same records and fields accessible via the REST API are available in your flows.
You can trigger flows from events in Business Central, or trigger them from other Microsoft 365 services and act on BC data. This guide covers both directions.
Prerequisites
- A Power Automate license (included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Dynamics 365 plans)
- A Business Central user account with the permissions needed for the records you want to access
- Access to make.powerautomate.com
Creating a Flow from the Power Automate Portal
- Go to make.powerautomate.com and sign in.
- Select Create from the left navigation.
- Choose Automated cloud flow to build a flow triggered by an event, or Instant cloud flow to trigger it manually.
- Give the flow a name, then search for and select your trigger.
Using Business Central Triggers
The Business Central connector includes two main triggers:
- When a record is created (V3), fires when a new record is added to a table
- When a record is modified (V3), fires when an existing record is changed
To configure a Business Central trigger:
- Select the trigger and sign in to the Business Central connector when prompted.
- Set Environment name to your BC environment (e.g.
Production). - Set Company name to the relevant company.
- Set Table name to the entity you want to monitor (e.g.
Customers).
The trigger polls for changes on a schedule (typically every few minutes). For real-time behavior, use the trigger from within Business Central instead (covered below).
Using Business Central Actions
Once a trigger fires, you can add Business Central actions to read or write data.
Get record, retrieves a single record by its ID.
List records, retrieves a filtered list of records. Use the Filter Query field to pass an OData filter expression, such as currencyCode eq 'USD'.
Create record, creates a new record in a specified table.
Update record (V3), updates an existing record. Requires the record ID, which you can get from a prior Get record or List records step.
Practical Example: Teams Notification When a Customer Is Created
This flow sends a Teams message to a channel whenever a new customer is added in Business Central.
- Add the trigger When a record is created (V3). Set the table to Customers.
- Add a Post message in a chat or channel action from the Microsoft Teams connector.
- Set Post as to Flow bot, select your team and channel.
- In the Message field, use dynamic content from the BC trigger: include Display Name and Number from the new customer record.
When the flow runs, the Teams message will include the customer name and number from the record that was just created in Business Central.
Triggering Flows from Within Business Central
You can also start a flow directly from a Business Central page without leaving the system.
- Open any record, for example, a Customer Card.
- Select Automate in the action bar at the top of the page.
- Select Create a flow to build a new flow linked to this page, or choose an existing flow to run it against the current record.
Flows triggered this way receive the selected record’s data as input, which you can use in subsequent steps. This is useful for actions like sending a PDF of an invoice, creating a follow-up task, or logging an approval request.
Notes on the Connector
The connector authenticates using your Microsoft account and delegates permissions based on your BC user role. It cannot access records you do not have permission to read or modify in Business Central directly.
For flows that need to run unattended (scheduled flows, automated triggers), use a service account with the appropriate BC permissions rather than a personal user account.
To read and write BC data programmatically outside of Power Automate, see How to Use APIs in Business Central.