Trigger HTTP API
The trigger HTTP API step is a favorite among developers as it allows you to trigger an external API directly within the flow. This step is particularly useful for passing data collected by the bot to third-party platforms or fetching information from a third-party platform and providing it back to the user. By integrating with other platforms, the chatbot becomes more personalized and relevant to your users, especially if you use other platforms to manage your business operations.
With the trigger HTTP API step, you can seamlessly exchange data between your chatbot and external systems, enabling a more dynamic and interactive conversational experience for your users.
You don't need to be a developer or possess any coding skills to use the HTTP API provided by a third-party platform. However, you do need to spend some time understanding how APIs work. After that, you can simply copy and paste certain details from the API documentation to our platform.
Few use case are as below;
Pass the data collected by the bot to a 3rd party CRM or application
Fetch the order details and reply back to the user
Fetch the customer details from a 3rd party application and progress the flow as per the dynamic data received
Setting Up HTTP API
Click on Settings and it will open a popup as shown below where you can construct the API
Name : You can give a name for the request you make like Contact Adding API
Method : We support all the request method like POST, GET, DELETE,PUT,PATCH,HEAD etc as per the API doc's you need to select the correct method
URL : This is where you need to put the API endpoint, on clicking the </> icon you can dynamically select attributes
Header : This is where you can pass the header contents, the key is the variable name and value is the value, this is applicable if the 3rd party API doc specific that certain values needs to be passed as header, can click on "Add Header" button to add more headers
Body : This is where you can pass the body of the request, this is optional and based on each API doc you can pass the body, the body can be passed in various methods like Query String, JSON, Row - if you select row you will able to pass any kind of contents or codes
Can use the attribute, body type, and row content as shown below
Testing the API
After you selected the Request Method, URL, Header & Body (if applicable) you need to trigger "Test" button to make a test API call to the 3rd party as show below
Mapping Response
We support response mapping in JSON format only, i.e your API provider must give a response in JSON format and the response values will be available in the attribute section and can be used in further steps.
For example, if you want to lookup whether a contact is existing in your CRM or not then you may need the response mapping coming from your CRM, in the further steps you can make use of the values.
Important Notes
If the response is not in JSON format then we will show an error "Response Mapping Not Done, Only JSON can be mapped as Response "
If the response is in JSON format then the system will automatically map the JSON values and will be available to select in further steps.
The response will automatically map only for the first time, if there is a change in the JSON structure then the system will prompt you with the message "JSON Structure Change Detected" and will give you an option to remap the Structure.
Logs
Logs menu will show only after triggering at-least one API request, only last 20 logs will be shown, you can click the "View" button to see the detailed request and response.
Fallback
Fallback is the feature used to instruct our system what action should be taken if your API request is failed, you can choose "Continue Further Steps" or "Stop Executing Further Steps" depends on further steps settings you can choose the fall back action.
Alert Email : Alert email helps you to get email alerts whenever an API request is failed, you can sepcificy upto 10 email address separated by comma.
In order to avoid sending too many email, our system will send only 1 email in every one hour irrespective of number of API requests are getting failed. if you want to test this or reset the counter then click on "Reset Mail Timeout" this will clear the counter.
Rate Limit & Timeout
Maximum timeout for API response is configured to 1 minute i.e if we are not getting any response from the 3rd party API in 60 seconds the system will terminate the API request.
Please use the HTTP API feature keeping the Rate Limit in mind, by default all accounts have a API rate limit of 10 requests per minute, if you need to increase this limit please contact support@pickyassist.com if you are making more than 10 API requests in a minute you will get an error "Rate Limit Exceeded"
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