What is Webhook?
A webhook is a method of automating the flow of data between two web applications or services. It allows one application to send real-time data to another application when a specific event or trigger occurs, without the need for constant polling or manual intervention.
- Event or Trigger: Webhooks are typically set up to respond to specific events or triggers. These events could be anything from a new user signing up, a payment done and submission of form.
- HTTP POST Requests: Webhooks work by using HTTP POST requests to send data from the Meritto to third-party services. When the specified event occurs, an HTTP POST request containing relevant data to a URL provided by the third-party.
- Payload: The data sent in the HTTP POST request is referred to as the payload. This can be in formats such as JSON and it contains information about the applicants.
- Authentication and Security: To ensure that only authorized parties can send webhook notifications, authentication mechanisms such as API keys or tokens are often used.
Prerequisites to configure Webhook
As the first step, we would request you to download the Webhook Integration Kit which includes a Webhook Integration Document as well as Master Data Sheet, share it with your respective technical teams for understanding.
Please find the steps to download the Mastersheet below:
Step 1: Click on Formdesk and select Manage Form (New)
Step 2: On the single action button (Gear button) option, against every form you will find the option to Download Webhook Integration Kit
Step 3: On successful download, you will have a zip file containing the Data connect file and the Mastersheet with all necessary form fields in the system.
ERP Partners have to share their API Documents on lines as shared in Webhook Integration Kit.
Once the API documentation follows the below steps to configure webhook.
Steps to create a Webhook
Go to “Post Application” select “Webhook/ERP Manager” Click on “create”.
Configuration Page
Name: Provide a name of Webhook (It should be unique incase of multiple webhook configured)
Select College: Select college name from drop down.
Select Module: Select any module whether you want to flow lead level or application level data.
Trigger Point: Select the event when API needs to be called.
Vendor List: Select Other.
Vendor Name: Type the vendor name
Select Format Type: Select Format either JSON or form-data
Click on Next Step:
As an industry standard, the data points between any two systems are sent and received in the JSON format. Paste JSON under template Format and Select the relevant token from the Registration token/Form tokens/Payment token/additional token.
Upon clicking ‘Validate JSON’ option, the system checks if there are any syntax errors before configuring the same to send the data.
Click on Save & Next:
Fields Settings
Select Required Fields: Select all the tokens here that you want to make mandatory, data would not trigger until the values would be available in all these tokens.
Date Fields: Select the format of data which you want to trigger in Webhook.
Replace Value Fields: Master data values can be replaced that you want to trigger in webhook like {“male”:”1”,”female”:”2”}, in that case for male value 1 and for female value 2 would be sent in webhook, make sure replace should be in valid json format.
Default Value Fields: Any default value can be sent in case the field value is empty.
Split Data Fields: Any field values can be split through delimiters followed by indexing.
Conditional Filter: If you want to send only specific data within a set trigger point.
Select Integer Fields: Select all the token here which you want to convert into integer while sending data to webhook.
File Fields Configuration: The nomenclature of each uploaded file can be set up here, with same nomenclature all applicant’s uploaded documents placed directly to third party SFTP, FTP and S3 bucket under the defined path and folder like (home/npuser/2018/production/Profilepic_{{application_no}})
Click on Next:
API Endpoint Configuration
Here all the necessary end-points are configured in order to enable data push.
Single step is for Single API authentication that can be basic auth or Api-keys in header (which is used for majority integrations)
Two steps are where an access token needs to be generated every time for a data push, such as generating a bearer token using the same while calling the next API.
One step screen-shot.
Two steps Screens-shot:
File uploaded Configuration
Select upload file type and update all the relevant details which require to place the student’s uploaded documents through multiple channels.
- SFTP
- FTP
- Amazon
Click on Save:
Preview and Test Hit
After all the necessary configurations, we need to check if the data is getting pushed successfully or not. For this, we have step 5 where we can send a test hit on the client system and check if we are receiving a successful response from the client’s end.
If a lead/application exists within the system, where the trigger and form details condition are satisfied, upon clicking the test hit option, it sends the data directly to the vendor system and fetches response of success or failure, with which we can understand if the data push is working successfully or not.
View Data
Once the configuration is set up and active, the data flow begins. You can check the data flow and the success and failed cases in API/Integration Logs.