Private Investigators Will Love the New Power Automate Connector
For behind-the-scenes types who want to investigate and automate the hunt for vehicle information, the new CarsXE connector might do the trick.
If being an investigator is not your thing, stick with me. The additional connectors reviewed here, offer various use including addressing health concerns, document signing, and fun! Any of these could be a fit for your business project. And, at the rate new connectors are being added, we could be on pace to round out 2022 with more than 1000 connectors!
Whether you’re running IT for law enforcement or private investigation, automate the research you do now by tapping into the CarsXE platform (which provides vehicle specs, market value, license plate decoding, history and photo search) with this latest Power Automate connector. Its actions offer the ability to get any of the following:
- A library of vehicle’s data based on the vehicle’s registration/license plate number and state. (International support also for Australia, Brazil, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Spain, India, Mexico and New Zealand.)
- A comprehensive list of vehicle history records for used and new cars by VIN.
- Accurate recognition of license plates from images, from over 100 countries and states.
- Code info from a library of over 3000 On Board Diagnostics (OBD) codes and their matching vehicle diagnosis.
- Photos of vehicles based on their make and model.
- Estimated market value for used and new cars by VIN, or
- Vehicle specs like: color options, equipment details, recall information, warranties, and photos.
This one is one of only two connectors which we’ve identified that identify vehicles.
Four stars
Digging deep into worldwide stats to investigate Influenza and COVID-19, this connector sources from The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) database, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society (RAPS) among others. Created by independent publishers/students Kevin Comba Gatimu, and Denis Wachira Kathuri, the connector could be an excellent tool for finding out vaccination status and outbreaks of these two common diseases worldwide. However, at present, the Microsoft documentation for this connector lists no URL for its source, a point which prompted me to investigate and reach out to Mr. Gatimu for more info.
With its long lost of actions, I asked what prompted them to create this connector. Mr. Gatimu responded, “I got inspiration from a personal project I created using Reactjs, which consumed open disease data API from https://disease.sh/. This really motivated my development skills, and all I thought of was to create a connector that would help other developers using low-code solutions on Microsoft power platform.”
Gatimu added, “The site provides a big range of detailed information about multiple viruses. From COVID19 global data overviews to city/region specific mobility data, and data on the current outbreak of Influenza. We also provide official government data for some countries, more to be added soon.”
Despite many actions, given the more sparse initial information, I was tempted to provide only two stars. But I upped it to three and a half stars for three reasons. First, Gatimu cited plans for expanded capability which will make this connector more robust; second, his goal to help other developers speaks of why we love this community, and third when I emailed him, I had a response from him inside of 20 minutes. You can’t beat that for service.
Three and a half stars; well done!
While this OMDb connector provides narrow usability, it might be handy if you work for a movie production company that regularly receives new movie pitches AND something about the new pitch reminds you of an old movie. If there was a way to automate your search such that you don’t erroneously accept a script that exists elsewhere, then this could be of use. Otherwise it’s just kind of fun. I dug up a quirky movie title that I’ve enjoyed to see the return. Why on earth I’d use it otherwise, I can’t say.
Two stars
Replying correctly to answer trivia questions might be an interesting way to start a flow. The Open Trivia Database allows access to trivia questions of varying categories, and the connector provides these four actions:
- Get a certain amount of questions.
- Get the categories along with their IDs’.
- Get the number of ALL questions in the database including Total, Pending, Verified, and Rejected.
- Get the number of questions in the database in a specific category.
All data from the API is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Two stars
Lithuanian-based Mobili Stotele, a mobile virtual PBX service for LMT mobile subscribers, has connector features that will allow you to send all the data and events about calls, voicemails, contacts and configuration to other services. In order to use the service, you’ll need a phone number with Tele2 Mobili Stotele subscription, and an API key. I’ll admit to not being polished on my Lithuanian, but the connector’s documentation leads me to believe its a pretty robust one right out of the gate with 10 actions and 18 triggers that you can use for your flows! Looks like its creators have put in the work on this one. However, there’s no documentation about it on the site on the site, which would make the answers to my questions easier to decipher.
Four stars
From the Netherland based PKIsigning, comes a document signing connector with the actions you might expect for automating associated tasks. According to Microsoft documentation, “The platform supports all eIDAS personal signing certificates from Dutch Qualified Trusted Service Providers and is ISO27001 certified.” This joins 20 document signing connectors we’ve identified in the Power Automate crowd. If its document signing you’re after, we can help you decide whether this one is the best one for your team.
Notably, its single trigger gets your flow going when an event occurs on a request, so you’ll get any status updates of dossiers within the organization. You’ll need a “professional” subscription to use this API.
Three stars
Power Automate connectors are so exciting; I love to investigate all that they can do. But I’ll hold being a connector investigator today and post a few more reviews soon.
