If you are in need of retrieving data out of your platform, one way to do so is through setting up Webhook notifications. In the Thought Industries platform, there are a number of events that can be broadcast in real-time to any enterprise system (e.g., email marketing, CRM, etc.) in JSON format, via webhooks.
Use Case Information
In your platform, you have three ways to pull data out of the system, using the Thought Industries Notifications feature:
- Real time Webhooks
- Posting nightly to SFTP
A common use case for setting up Notifications is not only to inform yourself about these triggers, via the email option, but to connect this information to another piece of software you may already be using, such as your CRM.
Note
For a complete list of learner triggers to receive a notifications about, please refer to this article for more details on this area of the platform.
What is a Webhook?
Fundamentally, Webhooks are automated messages used for applications to communicate with one another in real time when an event happens. Whenever that trigger event occurs in your site, the Webhook sees the trigger, collects the data about it, and sends that information to the URL specified by you, using a middle layer to configure the Webhook.
Note
You will need to configure your custom address using a middle layer. To learn more about Zapier, the middle layer Thought Industries natively integrates with, please refer to this article.
When to Use Webhooks
While APIs are the most common way for different software systems to connect and share information (one application making a request to another to receive a response), Webhooks are a great option if you have the need for one program to send data to another as soon as a particular event takes place. You can then pull this data using a web service, otherwise knows as a middle layer, and transform the webhook into a format consumable by various third party systems. Typically, integrating with a third-party system may require your technical team to write the necessary scripts.
Let's take a look at a common use case for using a Webhook:
- In your platform, you could set up a notification to be notified when a course is completed by a learner. In turn, you can send that webhook to your third-party email system, and then setup an automatic email to the learner who completed a particular course.
Note
It is important to know that all webhooks, except subscription purchases, are sent in real-time as the event is performed.
How to Configure a Webhook
- From your homepage, select Settings.
- From the left menu, select Integrations > Notifications.
- Click Add Notification.
- Choose the trigger to be notified about.
- Once your selection is made, you will be prompted to select your preferred format. Click Webhook.
- Enter the appropriate custom Webhook address.
- You can choose to be notified about a specific course, but the default setting applies to all courses within your learning site.
- Click Test Event.
- Once you've received your sample, click Save Notification.
Note
Each event will fire a separate Webhook in JSON format. The connection will time out in 15 seconds. If your endpoint does not respond before the connection times out, or if your endpoint returns a status code outside the range of 200–308, we will consider the delivery of the message as a failed attempt. Thought Industries will automatically retry failed Webhook notifications.
Tip
You can download a sample CSV or JSON file for any particular event by clicking on that event and then Download Sample CSV or Download Sample JSON. If the sample is empty, you may need to trigger that event within the site.