Connectors & Dataverse: Your Data Foundation

What are connectors?

Simple explanation

Think of connectors as adapters on a universal travel plug.

You are travelling the world. Every country has a different power outlet. Instead of buying a separate charger for each country, you use a universal adapter — plug it in, and your device just works.

Connectors do the same thing for data. SharePoint stores data one way. Outlook stores it another way. Salesforce stores it yet another way. A connector is the adapter that lets Power Platform talk to each service without you writing any integration code.

Triggers and actions

Every connector exposes two building blocks:

Concept	What It Does	Example
Trigger	Starts a flow when something happens	”When a file is created in SharePoint”
Action	Does something when called	”Send a Teams message”, “Create a row in Dataverse”

Priya uses the SharePoint trigger “When an item is created” to kick off a flow that notifies her team whenever a new campaign brief is added. The flow then uses the Teams action “Post a message” to alert the channel. Trigger starts it. Actions do the work.

Standard, premium, and custom connectors

Not all connectors are created equal. The exam tests three tiers:

Connector Tiers
Feature	Standard	Premium	Custom
Included in base licence	Yes	No — requires premium licence	No — requires premium licence
Examples	SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, Excel	SQL Server, Dataverse, HTTP, Salesforce	Any REST API you build or wrap
Number available	Hundreds	Dozens	Unlimited (you create them)
DLP policy grouping	Business or Non-business	Business or Non-business	Business or Non-business
Who creates them	Microsoft	Microsoft and partners	Your organisation

Exam tip: DLP policies and connector groups

Admins like Aisha group connectors into Business and Non-business categories using Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies. A DLP policy can block a flow that tries to send SharePoint data (Business) to Twitter (Non-business). Connectors in different groups cannot talk to each other inside the same flow.

The exam will describe a scenario where data leaks between services — the answer is usually a DLP policy.

What is Dataverse?

Simple explanation

Dataverse is a smart, secure database that anyone can use.

Imagine a huge, organised filing cabinet. Each drawer is a table. Each folder in that drawer is a row. Each label on the folder is a column. Dataverse gives you this filing cabinet in the cloud, with built-in security so only the right people can open the right drawers.

You do not need to be a database expert. You create tables with a visual editor, add columns, and your apps and flows connect to the data instantly.

Why not just use Excel or SharePoint?

This is one of the most common exam questions. Here is a clear comparison:

Data Storage Options
Capability	Excel	SharePoint List	Dataverse
Row limit	About 5,000 rows practical	Up to 30 million items	Millions of rows, enterprise scale
Relationships between tables	No	Lookups only	Full relational (one-to-many, many-to-many)
Role-based security	No (file-level only)	List-level permissions	Row-level, column-level, and role-based
Business rules	No	Column validation only	Yes — server-side rules, calculated columns
Works offline	Yes (file-based)	Limited	Yes (with Power Apps offline mode)
Audit logging	No	Basic version history	Full audit trail with history tracking
Needs premium licence	No	No	Yes

Aisha at Coastal Logistics chose Dataverse because she needed row-level security — drivers should only see their own shipments, dispatchers see everything. Excel and SharePoint cannot do that.

Standard tables vs custom tables

Dataverse comes with standard tables pre-built for common scenarios — Account, Contact, Activity, and more. These follow a common data model shared across Microsoft products like Dynamics 365.

You can also create custom tables for your own data. Tom at Summit Realty created custom tables for Properties, Viewings, and Offers that link back to the standard Contact table.

The exam may ask about the difference. Standard tables come from Microsoft and follow the Common Data Model. Custom tables are the ones you create.

How connectors and Dataverse work together

Here is the pattern you will see everywhere in Power Platform:

External data lives in services like SharePoint, SQL, or Salesforce
Connectors bring that data into Power Platform
Dataverse stores and secures the data centrally
Apps and flows read and write from Dataverse

Carlos at Greenleaf Health has employee data in an HR system. A connector pulls new hire records into Dataverse every night. His Power Apps onboarding app reads from Dataverse. When a manager approves a task, Power Automate updates the Dataverse row and sends a Teams notification.

The connector is the bridge. Dataverse is the hub.

Environments: keeping things separate

Dataverse lives inside environments — isolated containers for apps, flows, and data. Aisha set up three environments for Coastal Logistics:

Environment	Purpose
Development	Builders test new apps here
Test	Quality assurance before go-live
Production	Live data, real users

Each environment has its own Dataverse database, its own connectors, and its own DLP policies. Apps in one environment cannot accidentally access data in another.

Exam tip: Managed vs unmanaged solutions

When you move apps between environments, you package them as solutions. An unmanaged solution can be edited in the target environment. A managed solution is locked — you can use it but not change it. The exam tests this distinction.

🎬 Video walkthrough

🎬 Video coming soon

Connectors & Dataverse — PL-900 Domain 1

~9 min