Appendix
This appendix outlines the contents of the Custom Integrations tutorial and providesย some links to more in-depth documentation. Return to this document any time you want to review:
- Custom integrations
- Querying external APIs
- Displaying data pulled from external sources
- Sorting and modifying data
Airkit Platform
Custom Integrations must be established in the Console before they can be added to individual applications.
- Create custom integrations under Console > Integrations > Custom Integrations
- Once a custom integration has been set up, use it to establish a connection with a specific account under Console > Integrations > Connected Accounts.
- Once an integration is established in the Console, it can be used in any application within the Organization.
For further discussion of custom integrations, see Custom Integrations. For further discussion of integrations more broadly, see Integrations and APIs.
Once established, integrations can be tied to an individual app by opening the app in the Studio and making changes in Settings.
You can designate integrations to connect to your app under Settings > Integrations.
All integrations that have been correctly established in the Console will be available for selection, and a single app can be associated with any number of external integrations.
Connect to external APIs with the HTTP Request Data Operation.
Once an integration has been tied to an application, you can use its credentials to send HTTP Requests to the API.
- This is done in Connections Builder
- HTTP requests are sent within Data Flows via the HTTP Request Data Operation.
- The Transform Data Operation can be used to clean up or otherwise restructure data via Airscript.
- Airscript can also be used to query Lists and Objects, either within a Transform Data Operation or in any input box that accepts Airscript.
Data Flows can designate output, which can be bound to variables and referenced downstream. Bind Data Flow output to variables as part of the Run Data Flow Action. Create new variables in the Variable Tree and assign them different Variable Scopes. The variables used in this Petfinder App were primarily Activity Group Variables.
What is an Activity Group Variable? ๐ป
An Activity Group is a container of smaller Activities. A Web Page is a type of Activity, and a Web Flow is a type of Activity Group.
An Activity Group Variable is a variable that is only accessible within a particular Activity Group. An Activity Group Variable that's associated with a particular Web Flow, for instance, can only be referenced within that Web Flow. This contrasts with, for instance, global variables, which can be referenced at any point throughout a Journey.
Technically, Activity Group Variables can be accessed under the activityGroup
namespace, but this is the presumed namespace by default. An Activity Group Variable designated pets
can be accessed both as activityGroup.pets
or simply pets
, provided it's been referenced within the appropriate Activity Group.
The Web Flows Builder can create Web Pages that display data pulled from an external API.
Most Web Controls can display contents or otherwise behave dynamically based on data pulled from an external API. Some such Web Controls include:
- Labels
- Dropdown Lists
- Buttons
- Images
- Media files can be referenced by their URLs, or, if they're stored more long-term to Media Library, their URIs.
If an external API provides a list of data, the contents can be displayed even if the precise length of the pulled list varies or is otherwise unknown. This is done by feeding the list of data to a Container List Web Control and looping through each item in the list. For more on displaying repeating elements, see Repeating Elements.
Updated almost 2 years ago