External Data Sources (e.g. CRM)

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atfinity allows you to connect external instance data sources so users can copy values from those directly.
To connect an external data source, follow these steps:
1.Specify your Data Source under Administration -> Data Sources
First, name the data source for a certain ontology and create it. Then specify the urls where atfinity should send list and retrieve requests. A list request should return a selection of instances where users can copy values from. A retrieve request returns values for a single instance. 
2.Specify the data source for an ontology
Open any ontology under configuration -> ontologies. Under "External Data Source" mention the source you have just created. 
Requirements on your API
List Request
URL
atfinity will append ?q=QUERY to the url specified for the list request and make a GET request to this url. So specifying https://api.yourcrm.com/api/search_person would make a request tohttps://api.yourcrm.com/api/search_person?q=QUERY, where QUERY will be replaced with a url-encoded version of the user entered query.  
Request Header
Key
Value
Content-Type
application/json
From
The email of the user making the request
atfinity-Ontology
The key of the ontology atfinity expects to get data for
Custom
Your specified key and value from Administration -> Data Sources
Response
atfinity expects to receive JSON looking like this. The name will be displayed to the user and the identifier will be used for the retrieve request. The details part needs to be provided only if "Enable Detail Column" is set to "Yes". All three can be arbitrary strings. 
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{
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    "data": [
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        {
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            "identifier": "10098",
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            "name": "Thorben Croisé",
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            "details": "Located in Zurich, Engineering Department"
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        },
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        {
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            "identifier": "10099b",
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            "name": "Alexander Balzer",
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            "details": "Located in Zurich, Business Department"
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        }
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    ],
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    "meta": {
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        "pagination": {
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            "count": 2,
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            "page": 1,
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            "pages": 1
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        }
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    }
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}
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Pagination
atfinity handles pagination of the returned instance list if necessary. At a time, usually only 20 entries will be displayed. In the meta.pagination part of the response atfinity expects those values:
Key
Value
count
The total count of all instances
page
The currently displayed tuest
pages
The total count of all pages
When used navigate to the next page, these extra query parameters will be included in the request:
Parameter
Value
page
The requested page
page_size
The page size, usually this stays fixed at 20
If you would not like to handle pagination, you could just always return less than page_size (usually 20) elements and fix page and pages to 1.
Retrieve Request
URL
atfinity will append the value of IDENTIFIER acquired in the list request to the url and make a GET request to this url. So specifying https://api.yourcrm.com/api/person/ would make a request tohttps://api.yourcrm.com/api/person/IDENTIFIER . 
Request Header
Key
Value
Content-Type
application/json
From
The email of the user making the request
atfinity-Ontology
The key of the ontology atfinity expects to get data for
Custom
Your specified key and value from Administration -> Data Sources
Response
atfinity expects to receive JSON looking like this. All the values within data will be tried to match to information keys of the ontology of the instance this request has been made for. 
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{
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    "data": {
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        "cid": "1",
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        "first_name": "Thorben",
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        "last_name": "Croisé"
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    }
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}
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Serialisation
Provided values need to be serialised in the same manner as values provided via our API. For most types using the default JSON format serialisation is just enough, so e.g. {"firstname": "string"}, {"number_of_children": 2}, {"weight": 73.4} or {"has_been_screened": true}. 
Text, Number, Boolean: Default JSON format
Enum: Provide the key of the chosen value as a string, e.g. germany
Multi Enum: Provide the ticked possible values in an array (either json encoded or not), like this:  ["inherited", "real_estate_sale"]
Unit, Unit per Item: Provide a dictionary with three entries like so: {"decimal_value": 1000, "item": null, "unit": "chf"}
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Errors
Errors resulting from atfinity sending you values that you cannot or do not want to process should be handled mostly via HTTP Status Codes. atfinity will try to give users nice message for the following status codes:
Code
Description
401 UNAUTHORIZED
If the request from atfinity was not authorised for any reason, e.g. the provided API-KEY was invalid or the user in the FROM header is not allowed to make the request.
404 NOT FOUND
If the provided URL is not valid on your server. Do not use this if no results are returned in a search
5xx SERVER ERROR
Return this if your server encounters an error
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Last modified 6mo ago
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Contents
Requirements on your API
List Request
Retrieve Request
Errors