Webinar: Using Webhooks for Cloud Integration

More and more SaaS vendors are offering webhooks as a way to integrate their applications with other applications.

What is a webhook and how can you benefit? Sign up for our free webinar and we’ll introduce you to the concept of webhooks, explore different implementation styles, and show you how you don’t need to be a developer to take advantage of webhooks using itDuzzit.


Date: Thursday, March 1, 2012
Time: 1:00 PM (US/Central)
Duration: 60 minutes

Register Now

Use itDuzzit to handle webhook notifications from any application that supports webhooks, including:

  • Salesforce
  • Wufoo
  • FreshBooks
  • Zendesk
  • PayPal
  • Formstack
  • FormAssembly
  • ZohoCRM
  • Chargify
  • Shopify
  • Lighthouse
  • Autotask
  • Nexmo
  • Twilio
  • Olark
  • ZohoCreator
  • Unbounce
  • Mailchimp
  • Contactology
  • eBay
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Creating Custom Salesforce Integrations using pre-built Duzzits

This is the third post in a four part series of posts that explain how users can integrate with and extend Salesforce using itDuzzit. Previously, we looked at using pre-built Salesforce duzzits. Now we’ll look at how you can create custom Salesforce integrations using pre-built Salesforce duzzits.

In this post, let’s create a duzzit that retrieves leads created today, and inserts lead data into a google spreadsheet. To get started, we’ll click “Create a Duzzit”:

We’ll just create a blank duzzit, so click “Next”:

Let’s name the duzzit “Salesforce Lead to Google Spreadsheet”, and create it:

Now we’ll edit the new duzzit. In the first step, we’ll click on “(add a do)”, which allows us to choose from a large selection of possible actions:

Since we want to get Salesforce leads, we’ll click on Salesforce, and then scroll down to choose “Salesforce Lookup Leads”. This is the same lead lookup duzzit that we ran directly in the previous post, but in this case, we’re having our custom duzzit run it. Now we need to configure how it will be run:

For the purposes of this example, we only care about leads that have been created today. As you may recall, the “Salesforce Lookup Leads” duzzit takes a date string formatted as yyyy-mm-dd (e.g. 2011-10-24). For convenience, we can click on “select value” next to the “created after” input, and use the value picker to select an appropriate date value:

There are a lot of date value choices, so we’ll have to scroll down a fairly far to get to the formatted date section:

We’ll select the appropriate format. The “created after” input now is set:

Now we’ll save the configuration by clicking on “accept”. The outputs from the “Salesforce Lookup Leads” duzzit are now displayed as inputs on the left”:

In the next few steps, we’ll be using duzzits that create and insert data into a Google spreadsheet. In order to do this, you’ll need to have a Google account and will need to add authentication to Google spreadsheets for your itDuzzit account. First, let’s call a duzzit to create a spreadsheet. We’ll do this by dropping a “Do” into the step, clicking on “Google”, and choosing the “Create New Spreadsheet” duzzit:

Here we’ve named the new spreadsheet “Leads”, and have indicated the columns that will be created in the spreadsheet.

Next, we’ll add a Loop step (dragging a loop from the “more…” menu):

We’ll loop through leads. To configure this, drag the “leads” input (under SalesforceLeads on the left) onto (select value). Now the loop looks like this:

Within the loop, we’ll add a step (drag a step into the loop), and add a “Do” within the step. For this “Do”, we’ll select the “Google Spreadsheets – Add Row” duzzit:

In this example, we’ve filled in the name of the spreadsheet, the key for the spreadsheet (which was returned when the spreadsheet was created), and column names / values for first name, last name, and title.

Now let’s run the duzzit. (From the edit screen, clicking on “Do It” brings up the duzzit run screen, and here you can click on “Do It Now”). If everything has been configured correctly, you should now have a Google spreadsheet named leads that looks something like this:

This example just scratches the surface of what can be done to quickly connect Salesforce with virtually any other application that provides web service APIs.

In the next post, we’ll look at how to create connectors for Salesforce objects (which you’ll need to do if you want to work with custom objects), and how to use SOQL within itDuzzit.

Posted in Solutions | Tagged | Leave a comment

Using pre-built Salesforce Duzzits

This is the second post in a four part series of posts that explain how users can integrate with and extend Salesforce using itDuzzit. In this post, we’ll look at how you can use pre-built Salesforce duzzits.

Previously, we looked at connecting itDuzzit to a Salesforce organization. Once you’ve connected to a Salesforce organization, you can run pre-built Salesforce duzzits from the Duzzit library.

When you click on “Duzzit Library”, you’ll see a number of applications for which we provide pre-built duzzit connectors and solutions:

To see Salesforce duzzits, click on “Salesforce”. All pre-built duzzits related to Salesforce are listed:

If you’ve had a chance to explore through the system, you’ll know that there are often a number of different ways to call duzzits. Right now, we’ll simply run one directly. In this example, we’ll add a lead to Salesforce using the “Salesforce Create Lead” duzzit. When we select this duzzit by clicking on it, the duzzit run form appears:

There are a number of fields on this duzzit, each corresponding to an attribute on a Salesforce lead. In this example, we’ll make the following entries:

Next, clicking on the “Do It Now” button at the bottom of the form (you’ll probably need to scroll down to see it) will push this data to Salesforce. If successful, you’ll see this:

We can also lookup the new lead using the “Salesforce Lookup Leads” duzzit. You can find this in the library, in the same listing where you found the “Salesforce Create Lead” duzzit. Let’s click on it, and search using the name “Smith”:

After clicking “Do It Now”, we’ll get the results of the lookup:

Now that we’ve seen how Salesforce duzzits can be used to push information into Salesforce and query information from Salesforce, we’re ready to use these duzzits to a cross-application solution. In the next post, we’ll show how to create custom Salesforce integrations using pre-build duzzits.

Posted in Solutions | Tagged | Leave a comment

Connecting itDuzzit to Salesforce

This is the first post in a four part series of posts that explain how users can integrate with and extend Salesforce using itDuzzit. In this post, we’ll look at how to connect itDuzzit to Salesforce.

First, once you’re logged into itDuzzit, go to the “Connection” tab:

In this example, the account we’re using doesn’t have any connections yet. Scrolling down, we can get to where the Salesforce connector is listed:

Clicking on “Add Connection” brings you to a screen specific to Salesforce:

itDuzzit authenticates to Salesforce via the OAuth mechanism. To support OAuth, Salesforce requires that a package be installed within the Salesforce organization you’re connecting to. If you haven’t already installed the itDuzzit package, you can do so by clicking on one of the installation links. If you’re connecting to a development or production organization, click on “Click here to install itDuzzit into a Salesforce production environment”. If you’re connecting to a sandbox organization, click on “Click here to install itDuzzit into a Salesforce sandbox (test) environment”. Note that you’ll need to have sufficient authority within Salesforce to install the itDuzzit package.

Once a package has been installed, you’ll be able to authorize itDuzzit to connect to Salesforce on your behalf. If you’re setting up a connection to a production or development environment, choose “Production” as the environment type; otherwise choose “Sandbox”, and then click on “Go to Salesforce to authorize”. If you’re already logged into the Salesforce organization you’re connecting to, itDuzzit will be authorized to connect to that organization. If you’re not logged in to Salesforce, you’ll then be shown a Salesforce login screen:

When you enter your Salesforce credentials and click on “Login”, Salesforce will authenticate you, and provide itDuzzit with an authentication token for your itDuzzit account.

Now, returning to the connections page, you’ll see Salesforce listed as one of your connections.

In the next post, we cover using pre-built Salesforce duzzits.

Posted in Solutions | Tagged | Leave a comment

Free Webinar: Cloud Integration Made Easy with itDuzzit

Sign up for our free webinar to learn how the itDuzzit cloud integration platform simplifies application integration. Intended for both developers and non-developers alike, this intro will get you started building and configuring your own custom integration solutions.


Date: Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Time: 11:00 AM (US/Central)
Duration: 45 minutes

Register Now

Update: If you missed this webinar, you can watch the recording.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Integrating Your Apps with Wufoo using Webhooks

I’m a big fan of online form builders like Wufoo, because they let non-developers build and deploy great-looking online forms easily. To get access to the data collected from your form, you can download the data, email the results, or even send the data to other supported applications. But what if you need a tighter integration to an application that is not supported? If your online form builder supports webhooks, you can send your form submissions immediately to any external application by specifying the URL of an external API. Normally, you need to be a developer that can understand and code the API. However, with itDuzzit, you don’t need to be a developer to build a Wufoo webhook handler that integrates with other applications.

How to Build a Wufoo Webhook Handler

In a previous post, I discussed webhooks in more detail, but here I’ll show you how to use itDuzzit to build a custom handler that a Wufoo form can call. You can use itDuzzit’s editor to manipulate the form data, perform calculations, and then send the data to any number of cloud applications and communication channels.

itDuzzit provides some built-in features to make integrating with Wufoo easier. Here’s how it works.

  1. First, you need to connect your Wufoo account to your itDuzzit account. Select Wufoo on the Connections page or click here.

    Enter your Wufoo URL and API Key and then save the connection.

  2. Next, we’ll create a duzzit that will be our webhook handler. Select the “Create a Duzzit” button from the application menu. Then for type, choose “A Wufoo form handler”. This option will only be displayed if you connected your Wufoo account to itDuzzit. For template, select “Wufoo webhook for one of your forms”. Now all of your Wufoo forms will be listed. Choose the form that will call your webhook form handler.
  3. Give your duzzit a name and then save it.

    The duzzit is created with input fields to match all of your Wufoo form fields.

  4. Leave all the duzzit input fields blank, and click the button labeled “Add this Webhook”. This tells Wufoo to call the duzzit each time the Wufoo form submitted.

    To verify that the webhook was registered, you can go to your Wufoo form’s Notifications Settings page.

  5. Try it out by submitting your Wufoo form. If the webhook is working, you’ll see that it was called on the itDuzzit logs page.

    Click the “details” link to see the results.

Our duzzit doesn’t do anything yet, but now we can use the drag-and-drop Duzzit Editor to call any application in our Duzzit Library. For example, we can send the data to a Google Docs spreadsheet, to Salesforce, or QuickBooks online. Here’s a screen shot of the Duzzit Editor. I edited this one to send my form data to Constant Contact, by dropping a “DO” into the logic area of my duzzit and then selecting “Constant Contact – Create Contact” from the Duzzit Library.

itDuzzit is free to try. If you have questions or need help, feel free to contact us.

Posted in Features | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

International SMS Beta

itDuzzit provides integrated SMS notification capability. Initially this feature was restricted to US and Canada numbers, but now (via SMS provider Nexmo), itDuzzit has worldwide SMS notifications available in a beta release. If you’re already using itDuzzit’s integrated SMS notifications, you’ll notice a few changes.

First, we’ve introduced the notion of SMS “credits”. Originally, most itDuzzit accounts included the ability to send a set number of SMS messages per month. We’ve changed this to a set number of SMS credits, because the cost to send SMS messages can vary widely depending on country. In the US and Canada, the cost to send an SMS message is 1 credit, so current customers will still be able to send the same number of messages per month. However, sending to another country may cost several credits.

Next, there are notification settings that are specific to whether or not texts are intended to be delivered outside of the US and Canada:

If you are a US or Canada customer, and you only send text messages within the US and Canada, make sure that “US / Canada mobile numbers only” is selected. Under this setting, we’ll only try to deliver SMS messages within the US and Canada, and the target mobile number doesn’t need to have a country code (1) on it. So, both 17735555555 and 7735555555 would be acceptable, and would result in an attempt to send an SMS message to US/Canada area code 773, number 5555555.

If you need to send text messages to other countries (in addition to or instead of the US and Canada), select “Worldwide mobile numbers (all must include country code)”. The important thing to understand here is that all numbers MUST include a country code. In this case, 17735555555 would be routed to US/Canada area code 773 number 5555555, but 7735555555 would be routed to Russia (country code 7).

You’re welcome to give the international SMS beta a try. If you’ve signed up on or after September 29, 2011, and set your country to something other than the US or Canada, your should already be set for “Worldwide mobile numbers”. Otherwise, make sure that your account mobile number includes country code and change your SMS setting to “Worldwide mobile numbers”.

Currently your account is provided with a set number of monthly SMS credits (based on account level). We’ll soon be providing a way to purchase additional SMS credits.

Please contact us if you have any questions or issues.

Posted in Features | Tagged | Leave a comment

Implementing a Webhook Handler

A webhook is a mechanism that some cloud applications use to push out (near) real-time notifications to external systems. It works by issuing an HTTP POST to an external web service.  This is useful when you want to be notified when certain events occur in your applications, or if you need to send information to another system.  Because webhooks are fired only when certain events occur, it eliminates the need to use polling and other less efficient techniques.

There is no standard for Webhooks.  Applications implement webhooks in different ways.   Some applications post the event name and an object id, requiring subsequent API calls back to the cloud application to retrieve the datea. Others will post the entire object as request parameters, XML, or JSON.

itDuzzit Support for Webhooks

Several applications in our Duzzit Library support webhooks including:

  • Autotask (they call them “callouts”)
  • FreshBooks
  • Formstack
  • Lighthouse
  • Nexmo
  • Wufoo
  • Twilio
  • Zendesk (“triggers”)

itDuzzit is perfect for creating webhook handlers because:

  1. itDuzzits solutions (duzzits) are hosted securely
  2. Any duzzit can be exposed as an API by simply clicking a checkbox
  3. itDuzzit can natively process XML and JSON
  4. itDuzzit’s drag-and-drop editor gives you access to any other cloud application as well as e-mail and SMS.

How to Create a Webhook Handler Using itDuzzit

To demonstrate an itDuzzit webhook handler, we’ll use the Lighthouse ticketing system. We’ll create a duzzit to send a text message whenever a new ticket is created. Lighthouse does not currently have a user interface for adding, deleting, and listing webhooks. So we created some duzzits to perform these functions. To use them, you’ll have to connect your itDuzzit account to Lighthouse on the itDuzzit connections page.

To begin, create a duzzit with an input value named “http-request-body”. When Lighthouse calls our webhook, it will post a JSON object to our duzzit. The JSON object will go into this input field. Specify the datatype of JSON and paste in a sample of the JSON that will get posted. I ran this a couple of times to see what was posted and then collected the sample to paste in.

{
 "version": {"creator_name":"steve (at itduzzit)",
  "permalink":"ticket-for-project2",
  "number":1,
  "user_name":"steve (at itduzzit)",
  "milestone_id":null,"created_at":"2011-04-13T16:57:42Z",
  "body_html":"<div><p>Test</p></div<",
  "title":"Ticket for Project2",
  "body":"Test",
  "url":"http://itduzzit.lighthouseapp.com/projects/1/tickets/1",
  "updated_at":"2011-04-13T16:57:44Z",
  "project_id":11111,
  "diffable_attributes":{
    "state":"new"
  },
  "closed":false,
  "tag":null,
  "priority":1,
  "attachments_count":0,
  "creator_id":144000,
  "version":4,
  "user_id":144000,
  "assigned_user_id":null,
  "state":"new"
 }
}

After pasting in the sample data and saving my input value, I created an output called “Message” and checked the “Store the Output Value” checkbox.  This will cause the value to get saved to the itDuzzit logs. Now the JSON structure shows up on the left of the Duzzit Editor.  I can drag fields from the JSON on the left into the main logic area of my duzzit.  I created an “IF” to check if the version/version value is equal to “1″, which indicates that this is a new ticket.

I want to send a message using SMS so I drag fields from the left into my message:

New ticket # [[${json:object.version/number}]]
[[${json:object.version/url}]]

Then I select Send SMS from the “Send” menu and I drop that into my “IF”. I select my mobile number (which I set on the itDuzzit account page) by clicking “(select value)” and selecting it under “Account User Values” and then I use the message output variable.

The final setup step is turning this duzzit into an API and then registering the webhook with Lighthouse. On the settings page, I checked the box to enable the duzzit to be run as an API.  I also gave my duzzit a nice URL.

When I register the webhook, I’ll have to use a URL that includes my itDuzzit API token so that when it runs, it will have access my itDuzzit account.  I can use the Lighthouse Create Callback duzzit to register the webhook and then use the Lighthouse Callback List duzzit to verify that it was registered.

Now, if someone creates a ticket in Lighthouse, I get a text message.  I can check the logs page or use the “View History” link to see that Lighthouse called my duzzit.

If you want to try this out yourself, you can start by copying the one I created.

Posted in Features | Tagged , | Leave a comment