fmAccounting Link (QuickBooks Online Edition) Now Supports Webhooks

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We’ve just released a free update to fmAccounting Link (QuickBooks Online Edition), our FileMaker solution that integrates with the QuickBooks Online Accounting platform, to support QuickBooks Online Webhooks. We now support webhooks using either Claris Connect or our supplied PHP file. Claris Connect now includes a free tier which includes up to 500 flow steps each month – if you haven’t used Claris Connect before now is a great time to try it out and take advantage of the free tier.

Webhooks allow you to subscribe to automatically receive notifications from QuickBooks Online when certain events happen. We’ve included support for the following QuickBooks Online event triggers:

  • Customers: create and update
  • Invoices: create and update
  • Payments: create and update

You can easily add support for additional event triggers by following the pattern we have used in our FileMaker scripts.

Once you have setup Webhooks for your required event triggers the fmAccounting Link file will automatically update when one of the events is triggered. For example if a new Payment is created in QuickBooks Online fmAccounting Link will be notified and also created a new Payment record linked to an Invoice, automatically updating the amount owing.

Webhooks save you from having to continually poll QuickBooks Online to check for new records that you wish to download into the fmAccounting Link file.

You can get more information and instructions for setting up webhooks on our support site here. We have a video showing the Create Payment event trigger webhook in action below (or watch directly on YouTube here)

The full list of changes are listed in the version history notes here. Existing customers can download this version from the link on your original order email or your Databuzz account if you created an account with us with your order.

Otto Webhooks

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Ever since Claris stopped bundling PHP with FileMaker Server (FileMaker Server 19.2.1 for Windows and FileMaker Server 19.4.1 for macOS) we’ve been exploring webhooks alternatives to the PHP files that we supply with our solutions for the Data API and the older PHP API.

We recently added support for using Claris Connect to receive the webhooks and we are now working on adding support for Otto Webhooks. Otto from Proof+Geist is a tool that augments the capabilities of FileMaker Server, including automating data migrations and transferring files between servers. It also allows you to create receivers for incoming webhooks.

Webhooks allow you to automate connections between your Claris FileMaker solution and other platforms, for example:

Webhooks can save schools and businesses time and money by automating these connections. Otto’s built in support for webhooks means you can use Otto to act as the receiver of the incoming requests and then perform additional actions, including creating new records in a FileMaker solution, populating fields with data from the webhook request and performing a FileMaker script. This can be a much simpler alternative to having to host PHP files somewhere and deal with web server configurations, port forwarding, PHP ini files etc. You can usually setup the webhook in Otto in under 10 minutes and don’t need to learn any new programming languages.

Databuzz will be providing support for using Otto Webhooks as an alternative to the PHP files that we supply, beginning with fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition). You can read our support guides for setting up webhooks with Otto here:

We’ll be adding support for Otto webhooks to our other FileMaker solutions over the next few months – keep an eye on our support site for these.

Slack Notifications for Completed DocuSign Agreements

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Last this week I attended the Slack Frontiers Asia Pacific event in Sydney where the focus was on the digital HQ and how Slack can integrate with thousands of Apps. Integrating with DocuSign was a common topic in many of the sessions – Slack has a DocuSign App in their App Directory which makes connecting DocuSign to Slack very simple.

I’ve written previously about connecting FileMaker and Slack for receiving notifications for incoming SMS messages with our fmSMS solution and as I saw several demonstrations of receiving a notification in Slack that a DocuSign agreement had been signed I wondered whether I could use the same approach for our fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition) solution. I wanted a more customised notification that included a link to the Requests record in the fmESignature Link file.

I took a copy of the FileMaker script that generates and sends the notification to a Slack channel and was able to modify this and have it up and running in under 5 minutes. I simply added the Slack Notification to the existing FileMaker script that is performed when the notification is received and processed via a webhook from DocuSign.

If you’re using Slack in your organisation we think this is a great solution to generate notifications to users when incoming messages are received. As well as the Slack channel notification you can also get a notification from your operating system (e.g. macOS or iOS) when the message is posted to the Slack channel:

Here’s a screenshot showing an example of a Slack notification generated by FileMaker Server and pushed via a Slack App/bot to a Slack channel:

Here’s a short video we recorded showing this in action as a new DocuSign agreement is completed (you can also watch this on YouTube here):

If you would like to discuss adding Slack notifications for your completed DocuSign webhook notifications please get in touch for a free initial consultation to discuss your requirements.

WooCommerce Webhooks Using Claris Connect

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We’ve just published a new support guide on setting up webhooks using Claris Connect with out fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) solution. Using Claris Connect for webhooks can be a much simpler process than using the supplied PHP files for the FileMaker Data API as you don’t need to worry about hosting the php files and dealing with web servers, PHP configuration changes, port forwarding etc. You can setup a new Claris Connect Flow in a few minutes which can receive updates from WooCommerce and create new Order records or update existing customer records.

With the recent introduction of the Claris Platform Bundle and the Problem Solvers Circle which include a Claris Connect Standard license we expect to see a lot more customers be able to leverage the power that Claris Connect offers.

If you’re interested in using Claris Connect for receiving incoming webhook notifications for new WooCommerce orders please visit our WooCommerce Webhooks Using Claris Connect guide for step by step instructions. We’re pleased to report that no changes to the fmEcommerce Link file were required to support Claris Connect webhooks.

Claris Connect Webhooks

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With the recent introduction of the Claris Platform Bundle and the Problem Solvers Circle which include a Claris Connect Standard license we’ve decided to take another look at using Claris Connect for creating webhooks for our FileMaker Integration solutions. Claris Connect is a cloud-based data integration service that helps schools and businesses create powerful, automated workflows between applications. It was first released in March 2020 and required a seperate subscription to your FileMaker licensing, with plans starting at USD $99 per month, which was prohibitive for many potential customers.

Now that you can license the whole Claris Platform with a single subscription and get access to Claris Connect we expect to see a lot more customers be able to leverage the power that Claris Connect offers. We’ve always included PHP webhook files that initially worked with the FileMaker PHP API and more recently the FileMaker Data API. These webhook files allowed you to automate connections between your Claris FileMaker solution and other platforms, for example:

Webhooks can save schools and businesses time and money by automating these connections. Claris Connect includes a native Webhooks Connector that you can use to act as the receiver of the incoming requests and then perform additional actions, including creating new records in a FileMaker solution, populating fields with data from the webhook request and performing a FileMaker script. This can be a much simpler alternative to having to host PHP files somewhere and deal with web server configurations, port forwarding, PHP ini files etc. You can usually setup the Webhook in Claris Connect in minutes and don’t need to learn any new programming languages.

Databuzz will be providing support for using Claris Connect Webhooks as an alternative to the PHP files that we supply. For fmSMS we’ve created support guides for setting up Claris Connect Webhooks for both the Twilio SMS Gateway using the native Claris Connect Twilio app as a well as generic Claris Connect Webhooks for the other SMS Gateways:

We’ve also created support guides for Xero, WooCommerce, Shopify and DocuSign:

If you’ve recently signed up for either the Claris Platform Bundle and the Problem Solvers Circle we would encourage you to consider the advantage of using Claris Connect Webhooks over the traditional PHP files.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2.1 Now Supports Xero Webhooks

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We’ve just released a free update to fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2, our FileMaker solution that integrates with the Xero Cloud Accounting software, to support for Xero Webhooks for both the FileMaker Data API and PHP API. We had hoped to include this with v2 when it was released earlier this year but are pleased to now make this functionality available as a free update to existing customers.

Webhooks allow you to subscribe to automatically receive notifications from Xero when certain events happen – at present this is limited to Contacts and Invoices events. You can receive notifications when Contacts and Invoices are either created or updated and have fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) automatically update the Contact/Invoice or create the new Contact/Invoice.

This is particularly helpful when an Invoice has been paid in Xero and you wish to have the corresponding Invoice in FileMaker updated to reflect this. Using the supplied PHP Webhooks files and either the FileMaker Data API or the PHP API you can receive these notification from Xero and have the changes automatically reflected in your FileMaker system.

For further details on setting up Xero Webhooks see our fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2 Webhooks page for full details. We also have a video showing the setup and use of Xero Webhooks on our fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) videos page (or watch directly on YouTube here)

The full list of changes are listed in the version history notes here. Existing customers can download this version from the link on your original order email (contact us if you need the link to be reset etc).

Using DocuSign Webhooks to Push Completed PDF files to FileMaker Server

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Earlier this year we wrote about how you can integrate FileMaker with DocuSign, the leading electronic signature platform, to automate the electronic document signing workflow using the FileMaker platform. In that article and video we demonstrated how you could generate a PDF from a FileMaker layout with merge fields then send a document signing request to the recipient using the DocuSign API, all from within FileMaker Pro.

At the time we were manually downloading the completed/signed PDF from DocuSign once we received the email notification from DocuSign that it had been completed. Since that article we done a number of FileMaker/DocuSign integrations and had some requests to automate the downloading of the completed PDF so users don’t need to manually download this. There’s two main options available here – Polling or Webhooks:

  • Polling involves making a request to DocuSign for the current status of an envelope. For example you could create a FileMaker Server scheduled script to run periodically to check the status of a DocuSign request, and then if it is completed download the final PDF. You are limited to checking the status of each envelope to once every 15 minutes – polling rates are checked by DocuSign and exceeding this limit can lead to failures with the automated review process
  • Webhooks are the preferred option as DocuSign can automatically notify you when the status of a DocuSign envelope changes. You don’t have to make unnecessary polling requests to continually check the status of an envelope – DocuSign will notify your application via the URL you specify when setting up your particular webhook.

In our experience we receive the Webhook notification within 15-30 seconds on average after the event without having to make any requests to DocuSign. We just wait for the notification from DocuSign that a request has been completed and then download the completed PDF into a FileMaker container field. We’ve written about how we use Webhooks for some of our other solutions, including Xero, WooCommerce and Shopify to be automatically notified of specified events, such as a new online order or a customer payment. Using DocuSign Webhooks is another example of how you can automate your business workflows and remove any unnecessary polling requests.

Here’s a short video showing the ‘Envelope Signed/Completed’ Webhook in action (you can also watch it on YouTube here):

If you would like to discuss integrating DocuSign with your FileMaker solution please get in touch for a free initial consultation to discuss your requirements.

 

Webhooks are coming to Xero

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Earlier this year Xero announced that Webhooks would be coming to the Xero API, which was exciting news for Xero developers who have been asking for webhooks support for a long time (there is a request from 2010 in the Xero API Customer Feedback site!). Webhooks allow you to subscribe to certain events that happen in Xero: the Contacts endpoint was the first to receive webhooks support and Xero have said they will quickly move to Invoices and other high-use endpoints (hopefully including Payments which our customers would love).

The events that are currently support for the Contacts endpoint are:

  1. Create: A new contact has been created
  2. Update: An existing contact has been updated (including when contacts are archived)

When one of these events are triggered the Xero API sends a HTTPS POST to the webhook’s configured URL – you can then perform the appropriate actions based on the contents of the webhook payload, such as creating a new contact or updating an existing contact in FileMaker.

Xero started a closed beta for the Contacts webhooks which Databuzz was lucky enough to be invited to join and we’ve been working on ways to implement webhooks with our fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) solution, initially using the FileMaker PHP API. Databuzz has been working with webhooks for many years, for example adding webhooks support to our fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) solution to allow new orders to be pushed automatically, and to fmSMS to allow incoming messages to be pushed to FileMaker without requiring users to download these manually. Adding webhooks support to our fmEcommerce Link solution was fairly straightforward – we created a PHP file that uses the FileMaker PHP API and processes the webhook payload to update the existing contact or create a new Contact as required.

We still need to polish these off but we wanted to demonstrate how you could use Contacts webhooks (and Invoices and other endpoints that are supported in the future) with our fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) solution. If Contacts are created or updated directly in Xero and you need to make the same updates in your FileMaker solution web hooks will save you having to either re-enter these manually or downloads these from Xero via the Xero API.

Check out our video below (or on YouTube) that shows how you can use webhooks to have updates from Xero pushed automatically to fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) (or your FileMaker solution that you have integrated this into). If you have any questions about webhooks and Xero please post them in the comments below or contact us directly.

Update November 30, 2017: webhooks for Invoices are now available.