Autodesk Data Models Brought to Life: Using GraphQL to Implement Real-World Data Connectors

As Autodesk shifts to platform thinking, GraphQL is the choice for a developer-friendly alternative to a REST API. Our GraphQL APIs enable customers to work across the many data sources for their projects—whether buildings for construction, manufactured components, or assets in a media production. And there should be a common solution for data access when working with the rich, granular data stored in these Autodesk Data Models and Data Exchanges. This presentation will be a case study of how GraphQL was used to build data connectors between Autodesk’s platform and third-party applications. Our engineering team collaborated with System Integrators to produce several connectors—for Microsoft’s Power BI and Power Automate, and Autodesk Dynamo. Each connector shared common and unique integration challenges. We’d like to share our journey of discovery that resulted in customer utility and reveal how we brought the Autodesk Data Models to life through successful integration use cases.