Fabric’s Real-Time Intelligence features are, for me, the most interesting things to learn about in the platform. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in them – far from it – but they are quite easy to use and they open up some interesting possibilities for low-code/no-code people like me. The other day I was wondering if it was possible to send events and data from Power Automate to Fabric using Eventstreams and it turns out it is quite easy to do.
Here’s a really simple illustration. I created a new Eventstream in a Fabric workspace, then clicked the “Use custom endpoint” option and published the Eventstream so it was ready to send data to:
Then, in Power Automate, I built a super-simple flow with a “Manually trigger a flow” trigger and then the “Send event” action from the Event Hubs connector:
This works because you can send data from Power Automate to the Eventstream custom endpoint using the Event Hub protocol. To set up the connection to the Eventstream in Power Automate I entered a name for the connection, chose the “Access Key” authentication type and then copied the “Connection string-primary key” value from the Eventstream custom endpoint, shown in the first screenshot above (you need to click the eye icon next to it in order to copy it to the clipboard) and pasted it into the “Connection String” property in the Power Automate connector:
Then I configured the “Send event” action like so:
I had to manually paste the Event Hub Name, shown in the first screenshot above, as a custom value because I got an error when I tried to use Power Automate’s dropdown box to find the name. I put the Timestamp from the “Manually trigger a flow” trigger into the Content property.
After saving the flow I was then able to trigger it from my browser or the Power Automate mobile app, and every time the flow ran it sent the time of the run to my Eventstream:
Very basic but it proves the point. What could you use this for? Power Automate has a huge number of connectors for Microsoft and third party services: for example you can trigger a flow when a file stored in OneDrive for Business is modified or when new content is published to an RSS feed. Sending these events and their related data on to a Fabric Eventstream not only means you can capture them for analysis in OneLake or an EventHouse but also send the events on to Fabric Activator, which can apply sophisticated rules so you can be alerted when something happens and specific conditions are met in Teams or via email, run Fabric items such as notebooks or even trigger Power Automate flows. I’ll explore some of these scenarios in more detail in future blog posts.
Can I do the same from Powershell? Is this the way to replace the Streaming Dataset functionality?
Yes, it should be possible – the Eventstream gives you sample code in several languages to show how to push data to a custom endpoint. This video and associated resources might also be useful https://youtu.be/nt4Q9z1NyvA?si=oC6z0ZTHJ32najff
Pat’s video “only” covers Python. I am specifically looking for a PowerShell version. So far a search for the cmdlets comes up empty. Can you please ask Pat to cover that in an upcoming video?
I don’t know if Pat knows anything about PowerShell but I’ll ask.
Here is an interesting business scenario about sending MS Forms data to an Eventstream using the technique you describe: https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Real-Time-Intelligence-Community/Real-Time-Analysis-of-Microsoft-Form-Responses-with-Microsoft/ba-p/4285150
Hi Chris great and very detailed article thank you so much cause setting up the eventstream is not so easy ! I succed in testing the creation of an event but when i tried to trigger the power automate flow through copilot studio so that i can pass suggested answered from my AI bot and log them into fabric i was stuck . I can see my eventhub connection into the “Manage Your connection” copilot studio panel . It is not connected when i try to connect there s no error message but still not connected at all . any suggestion if by chance you tried the same scenario?
When I tried to create my connection in Power Automate I thought I had copied the connection string from the Eventstream to the clipboard but it turned out I hadn’t – you need to reveal the connection string in order to copy it.
Thanks for sharing it.