I have a use-case that requires users to fill forms for feedback, complaints or suggestions. Before seeing and submitting the form, they need to verify their identify through an OTP sent by SMS to their phones.
We want to use Power Apps portals for that, as we need it to be publicly accessible, but it's really not intuitive for me and the documentation doesn't help either. How would I best achieve this? The user, upon hitting the 'website', can either see a page asking them to input their phone numbers, which then sends the OTP, verifies it, and finally navigates them to another page which is the form, OR just see the form from the beginning, input all their info (including their phone numbers), and upon submitting, an OTP is sent, verified and only then, the form submits successfully.
I want to use Twilio for sending and verifying the OTPs. How can I link the submit or any button to its API? Do I have to use a Power Automate flow here? I've seen PA supports sending messages to SMS, would that be it or is there a separate action for OTPs?
Hi @Anonymous ,
This is an interesting question. If you want your user to login into the portal before accessing and submitting data one way you could achieve this would be to use Azure AD B2C as your identity provider. They natively support 2-factor auth with SMS support. If you want your portal to be accessed by any user without auth then a possible solution might be to call Power Automate (either via HTTP or while creating record in the system) that will generate some OTP code, save it in the system and send then via Twillio (or any other SMS provider) to the user. Then user enters that code that you can validate either via Read Web API or by other methods and confirms submit. You can also use custom Azure Functions instead of Power Automate or just call Twillio API directly from the portal but in the last scenario, you would need to come up with some secure way of generating and validation process which might be tricky to do on the front end.
You for sure would need to get a Twillio API thing to come back and set the Verfied flag somewhere on the back end - as that would not happen on the Portal front-end.
Portal = Dataverse = Automate Cloud flow = Twillio API
Not guranteed speed
Portal = Custom API Front-end = Twillio API
Faster
Twillio API = Power Automate (does phone number matching in Dataverse = Set Dataverse table record to Verified
This would be all Async to the user as portal does not currently have Sync intergration pattern
Thank you for the reply. What I want is for users to access the feedback form without having to login. The only authentication they have to do is verifying their phone numbers through an OTP before or when submitting the form.
I created a custom Twilio API using Node.js with two routes: one that generates an OTP and sends it to the user, and another that verifies it. I then used Javascript in the Portal script code of a page to fetch the API; user clicks a button, enters their phone number and an OTP is sent; a text input appears, asking for the OTP which triggers the verify API call; if it's verified, a message appears and the user is redirected to another page; otherwise, they're asked to verify again.
Now, I'm assuming this isn't very safe as I basically expose the API calls on the client side/front-end, but it did seem the easiest. Any documentation on how I could use an Azure Function? What would be the trigger?
Thank you for the reply.
If I use Power Automate, I'd have to first create a HTTP request trigger, which then feeds into a random number generator (if that's possible), and finally to the Twilio send SMS action. I store the OTP of that unique user in a table. Using Javascript, I'd have to connect to the entity which is storing all the OTPs (using Liquid templating and FetchXML, I'm assuming?), and compare the OTP code the user inputs somewhere against the OTP stored in backend/db. If it's verified, I somehow either change the status or just delete the record. Am I thinking correctly here?
@Anonymous it is not unsafe if you are not exposing any secrets and passwords for your API. You can also further protect your API by using for example Azure API Management to hide actual endpoints, allow calls only from your website etc. I am not sure that there some official guide on how to get started with Azure Functions and Dataverse or Dynamics but there are plenty of blog posts. Also in your case, you might not need to connect with Dataverse at all. As a good starting point for Azure Function and Node.js see here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-get-started?pivots=programming-language-javascript. Regarding the trigger - you can create HTTP trigger function and call it as a regular API endpoint.
I tried Azure Functions and it worked very well. I just hosted my code in a Function App and used the request url it generated with the HTTP trigger.
One thing though; what I currently do is generate an OTP through a POST request, and then verify the OTP (all through Twilio). If the OTP is verified, it redirects the user to another page (form page). But users can just bypass the OTP page and go to the form page directly. Is there a way to prevent that? I thought of the page level permissions but they depend on authentication like Azure AD or the support third parties, not something custom like the OTP. How would I be able to restrict the user who hasn't verified their OTP, to go directly to the form page, and only be able to go there when they verify?
I know I can do all of this in one page, but they want two separate pages for some reason.
Thanks.
@Anonymous interesting question. Well, this might be overkill, but the first thing that came to my mind is when you send an OTP to the user save it to the Dataverse and then when the user is redirected to the new page include that OTP in the request URL and use liquid to validate that this OTP indeed exists and didn't expire and show page content otherwise show an error. It sounds like a double verification (and it is ) but I don't see anything else straight away for two-page approach. If I will get another idea will reply again.
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Are you attending Microsoft Ignite in Seattle this week? If so, we'd love to see you at the Community Lounge! Hosted by members of our Community team, it's a great place to connect, meet some Microsoft executives, and get a sticker or two. And if you're an MVP there are some special opportunities to meet up! The Community Lounge is more than just a space—it's a hub of activity, collaboration, and camaraderie. So, dive in, explore, and make the most of your Microsoft Ignite experience by immersing yourself in the vibrant and dynamic community that awaits you.Find out the schedule and all the details here: Community Lounge at Ignite! See you at #MSIgnite!
This is the eighth post in our series dedicated to helping the amazing members of our community--both new members and seasoned veterans--learn and grow in how to best engage in the community! Each Tuesday, we feature new content that will help you best understand the community--from ranking and badges to profile avatars, from Super Users to blogging in the community. Our hope is that this information will help each of our community members grow in their experience with Power Platform, with the community, and with each other! This Week: All About Subscriptions & Notifications Subscribing to a CategorySubscribing to a TopicSubscribing to a LabelBookmarksManaging & Viewing your Subscriptions & BookmarksA Note on Following Friends on Mobile Subscriptions ensure that you receive automated messages about the most recent posts and replies. There are multiple ways you can subscribe to content and boards in the community! (Please note: if you have created an AAD (Azure Active Directory) account you won't be able to receive e-mail notifications.) Subscribing to a Category When you're looking at the entire category, select from the Options drop down and choose Subscribe. You can then choose to Subscribe to all of the boards or select only the boards you want to receive notifications. When you're satisfied with your choices, click Save. Subscribing to a Topic You can also subscribe to a single topic by clicking Subscribe from the Options drop down menu, while you are viewing the topic or in the General board overview, respectively. Subscribing to a Label You can find the labels at the bottom left of a post.From a particular post with a label, click on the label to filter by that label. This opens a window containing a list of posts with the label you have selected. Click Subscribe. Note: You can only subscribe to a label at the board level. If you subscribe to a label named 'Copilot' at board #1, it will not automatically subscribe you to an identically named label at board #2. You will have to subscribe twice, once at each board. Bookmarks Just like you can subscribe to topics and categories, you can also bookmark topics and boards from the same menus! Simply go to the Topic Options drop down menu to bookmark a topic or the Options drop down to bookmark a board. The difference between subscribing and bookmarking is that subscriptions provide you with notifications, whereas bookmarks provide you a static way of easily accessing your favorite boards from the My subscriptions area. Managing & Viewing Your Subscriptions & Bookmarks To manage your subscriptions, click on your avatar and select My subscriptions from the drop-down menu. From the Subscriptions & Notifications tab, you can manage your subscriptions, including your e-mail subscription options, your bookmarks, your notification settings, and your email notification format. You can see a list of all your subscriptions and bookmarks and choose which ones to delete, either individually or in bulk, by checking multiple boxes. A Note on Following Friends on Mobile Adding someone as a friend or selecting Follow in the mobile view does not allow you to subscribe to their activity feed. You will merely be able to see your friends’ biography, other personal information, or online status, and send messages more quickly by choosing who to send the message to from a list, as opposed to having to search by username.