System Guides | Workato

Overview

Workato is an integration platform that allows businesses to automate workflows and connect various applications and systems together. It enables users to create automated processes, known as recipes, to facilitate data synchronization and exchange between different platforms and tools. Workato supports a wide range of applications and services, including CRM systems, marketing platforms, collaboration tools, and cloud storage services. By automating repetitive tasks and streamlining data flow across different systems, Workato helps businesses improve efficiency and productivity in their operations.

Products Leveraged

The Reference architecture below leverages the following Azure / Microsoft 365 components:

  • Connectors: Pre-built connections to over 1000 systems
  • Recipes: Automations that are built using a series of steps and connectors
  • Community Library: Recipe templates that are used to give builders a starting point for commonly known use cases.
  • API Platform: A platform to expose the ability to trigger recipes via API calls. In addition, adds a way to publish, consume and secure these recipes via API endpoints.

Integration Patterns & Best Practices

Paths Workspace

Moveworks recommends building an API endpoint that triggers a recipe. The API endpoint operates in an asynchronous manner, in that it runs the recipe and then, optionally, can hit the event workspace to communicate back to the user if required by the use case.

Create a recipe that is triggered via “Build an API Endpoint”. Once here define your schema considering the following:

  1. Ensure all the fields you will need as input from the user are defined here in order to complete the query or path workflow
  2. Consider any user-attribute criteria as well:
    • Any attributes that would be required to make calls to external systems on the user’s behalf
    • Their email address for sending them a message back via Moveworks API

In the recipe, import the Moveworks connector and use the credentials supplied to you by your CSM team. Verify the connectivity. As a developer, use your relevant email for your Moveworks account to test that you can send a message back to yourself via chat.

In API Platform, create a new API under your desired collection and create an endpoint making sure you specify the recipe you just created above. Enable the endpoint and recipe and “Try it Out” to make sure you are able to pass a test schema and have received that message in the Moveworks bot.

Now you can proceed on building the automation or query with the data you will receive from the API call, as well as send a custom message back to the user based on the events or information within the recipe.

Query Workspace

Workato APIs can be used both asynchronously, to trigger workflows, and synchronously to process data and return data via the API Response near real time (<10 seconds).

The Query workspace follows the same architecture and design as the Paths workspace outlined above, however to ensure your response is synchronous, make sure you define all the data required in order to run the automation behind the API endpoint.

To do this, trigger your new recipe with “New API Request”. From here you will define a “Request Schema” with which you can define your expected inputs for the API call that would be coming from the Creator Studio Query workspace.

In addition, you can define your response schema to define the payload schema that would be returned to the Query client. This will be the “API Contract” which is an important part of an API-led approach, granting you full control over the data coming in and back to the Query.

Using the Workato API platform, creating an API endpoint and attaching it to this recipe will allow you to fully test the recipe as you continue to build out the implementation.

Event Workspace

Workato has 2 mechanisms for triggering events using their connectors:

  1. Trigger from an app - some systems allow real-time event notifications via API without the need to poll. This is a streaming architecture that will trigger a recipe immediately by receiving a “push” notification.
  2. Run on a schedule - for systems who’s API does not support push notifications, this is the other option. You can poll on periodic time intervals or “cron” jobs to run on specific dates or days.

Triggering a recipe from the above will provide the framework for setting up events that send messages to employees via the API using the Moveworks connector. The messages can be sent using the standard API with text/images, or it could be an event that triggers the beginning of a path or query.