It’s never ideal to have to pull developers off a project to assist with other things. Especially something you could do yourself! The good news is that you can now transfer data from an external REST-enabled web service to Appenate using the REST Connector For Data Sources. You get to spare your devs’ time – or avoid hiring one just for this.
Before we get into it, let’s learn a little more about the man behind this choice of feature, Muller, a Support Specialist at Appenate.
- He’s an avid outdoorsman and loves hiking, biking and camping.
- He’s a happy family man and father of two.
- He hates “Parktown prawns” (who doesn’t?), especially when they jump on him. 😅
“You can create your own data source from universal data structures like JSON or XML, which gives you the ability to customise your data in a data source.” – Muller
No More Developers?
Previously, populating a Data Source with data from an external web service required the web service’s response to be in a specific format. This meant that you’d have to get developers involved, pulling them away from whatever it was they should really be working on.
Now the REST Connector for Data Sources is here to help. Once set up, you can pull data into Appenate from any REST-based web service. You get your data, your developers get to focus on what’s important, and everyone’s happy!
How Does It Work?
Simply add a Connector to your Data Source, select the “REST” Connector and then choose whether you want to retrieve data as JSON or XML. Then add your Target URL or Endpoint, and you’re ready to set it all up.
Setup is done by mapping columns from the Data Source to the JSON/XML response values. For more info on that, check out the Knowledge Base article here (you’ll need to log into your Appenate account).
If you need any help setting up, please don’t hesitate to contact customer success.
What Does This Look Like Live?
One example is if you keep customer information in your CRM, but you’d like your field sales guys to be able to access this information in Appenate on the go.
Using this feature, you can map out and pull the data into your Data Source automatically. You can even set the refresh frequency – depending on how often the data needs updating.
This feature works with any REST-enabled web service. Another example is if you stored product information on a web service, you could pull that into Appenate just the same.
Curious But Don’t Have An Account?
You can sign up and use Appenate for free to get a feel for it. You don’t need to input credit card info, and you can cancel anytime.
Click here to create an account now and see the power that Appenate has to offer.