Overview

Connectors provide a no-code means of making API calls to external systems and can also transform URLs or strings found in comments or messages into structured Orders, Shipments, Itineraries, Tasks, etc. that are easy to access right from a conversation in Front. With connectors, you can build rules and macros that retrieve or update information in external systems and also attach a summary of information from an external system directly to conversations in Front.

Connectors come in two varieties:

• Application objects—these connectors identify matching patterns (such as order IDs) in Front conversations or comments and automatically attach a structured object to the conversation that contains information about and a link to the external resource.
• Application requests—these connectors make API calls to external systems. Currently, only GET requests are supported, but additional methods will be available soon.

To learn how to add a connector feature to your app, refer to our Help Center article. When you understand the basics, you can benefit from the connectors with third-party data guide.

Sample code for connectors

Refer to our Sample applications page for example code related to connectors.

Connector examples

Application objects

If a customer writes in to your team with a question that references a particular order, shipment, itinerary, task, etc., an application object can automatically extract that object’s URL and other metadata, and attach it to the header of the conversation for easy access:

This also applies to objects referenced in comments, which can also be easily previewed:

When attached to the conversation header, it’s easy to open the object in your external CRM/TMS/management system, or view details directly in Front:

Furthermore, application objects can do more than attach a link to a conversation. If you want more information at a glance, application objects can surface it to your Front users, as shown in the following image of an example Shopify order.