• Services offer different types of content and data via resources.

  example  Twitter  ==> Timeline or followers

• Data may be public and accessible to everyone (no user authentication required) or private. In this case, user authentication is required before the resource can be accessed.

  example  Content read in Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Twitter 

• Data is read in the resource and sent to Service Apps) in JSON format.
  • This data can be displayed using widgets. The Selector tool integrated in the data source is used to extract only the data you want.
  • Data is then automatically refreshed each time that the data source is modified.

• No user authentication:
  • The http://api.open-notify.org website publishes public data in real-time from the ISS (International Space Station).

    ==> Thanks to REST architecture, the position of the ISS can be displayed using a Google Maps widget without requiring user authentication.

• Using Basic authentication: * Creation of a timeline customized by each Twitter user.

  ==> Thanks to REST architecture and the REST API adopted by Twitter, tweets in a user's timeline can be displayed using a Data Viewer widget with prior user authentication.

  • Salesforce enables users to have different views of corporate data, e.g. lists of customers, prospects, projects or sales employees.

    ==> The REST protocol enables you to display these resources using Data Viewer widgets with prior user authentication.

example  

• View the International Space Shuttle (ISS) crew (public data):
  • Open APIs From Space service: http://api.open-notify.org/
  • People in Space Right Now resource: astros.json
    ==>  Base URI = http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json
     
• Display JSONPlaceholder comments, a fake REST API with public data used for testing and prototyping:
  • JSONPlaceholder service: http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/
  • comments resource: comments
    ==>  Base URI = http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/comments

Selector: Tool for extracting the data you want from the JSON file of the resource.

• The JSON table contains a list of tags surrounding data subsets using curly brackets, { }.

• You can click the tag you want in the JSON table (2).
  The tag will be highlighted in yellow.
  or
• You can enter an expression in the search field at the top of the window (1) and click Apply   See How to use regular expressions: JSONSelect website
           

Select First Row As Current Record: Used to indicate if the first record of the data source, when displayed in widgets, is selected by default (box is checked) or not (box is not checked).

No Data Message: This message is displayed when the data source does not contain any data.

• Enter the code directly in the field or click  to open the text editor. 

Auto Refresh (Note: Only for dynamic data sources): Used to indicate the automatic refreshment interval for data from the data source in hours/minutes.

• Data is automatically refreshed each time the app is run and each time the page is redisplayed, regardless of whether it is in execute mode or edit mode.
• Caution: The updating of data requires additional activity on the Service Apps platform.

Master Datasource: In a master-detail relationship, this is the name of the master data source linked to the current data source.

Master Field: Name of the primary key in the master data source used to establish the link with the current data source.

• As a general rule, it is the PK (Primary Key) column in the Service Manager) table.

Detail Field: Name of the EasyVista data source column identifying the key in the Service Manager table.

• As a general rule, it is the column whose prefix is FK (Foreign Key).

  example  You want to display all actions (detail data source) associated with an incident (master data source):

  • Master Datasource = Incidents data source defined using the Operation > Incidents > All Incidents parent query.
  • Master Field = PK identifying the Incident_ID column in the Incidents table.
  • Detail Field = FK_AM_ACTION_REQUEST_ID identifying the action number related to the incident.

About the use of the software companies API REST

Note: The possible cost of the use of the third-parties API REST via Service Apps is not taken care by EasyVista.

• Numerous software companies limit the access to the API REST of their software, generally by basing itself on a number of calls by hour/day/month.
• Only specific editions of their software can be eligible in the use of the API REST (with or without additional cost).
• Some software companies set up plans, e.g., Classic, Professional, Enterprise, for which the number of possible calls to the REST API or even to specific resources (i.e. endpoints) can be more or less numerous.