Signal Integration with Webhooks Guide

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Keywords: Signal, Webhooks, integration, Connections, Flows, Tags, Mappings, Retry Queue

Document ID: https://platform-support.certain.com/hc/en-us/articles/10901681579031-Signal-Integration-with-Webhooks-Guide#split1

This document is a guide to using Certain Signal to integrate with other applications by using Webhooks. It does not cover the ‘Advanced Webhooks’ product, which includes everything described here plus the use of nested JSON. Please see the separate guide to integrations using that product. Signal also integrates with Marketo, Eloqua, and Salesforce – see separate guides.

Certain Signal for Webhooks is automatically included with Certain Platform for new customers. If you’re interested in adding this or any other Signal integration to your instance of Certain, please email help@certain.com, including your account name and the Signal integration(s) you’re interested in.

Contents

What is Signal? How does it work? Signal processes data from your events in real-time, passing it from Certain Platform to your target third-party application. The target could be any app with webhook integration, such as Slack or Google Forms. This real-time integration empowers sales and marketing teams to take intelligent, prompt action on the right event data.

Almost everything is set up at the account level. Signal processes information from the events in your account. For event-level information, this is based on the custom tags you attach to data such as Registration Statuses, as explained in this guide.

Important: Signal processes outbound information, processing information from Certain and sending it to your target application.

Prerequisites

Data-Flow Considerations

Credentials in Target Application For you to set up a Connection in Signal, the administrator of your target third-party application will need to provide you with the information described under “Adding a Connection.” For example, if your chosen Authentication Method is OAuth2, they’ll need to create an OAuth2 app in that system and provide you with the following: Endpoint, Client Id, and Client Secret.

Overview of Setup Steps Step Page On Certain Platform 1. Add tags in the account Setting Tags Up for an Account 2. Apply those tags Applying Tags in an Account 3. Add a Connection Setting up a Connection 4. Configure a Flow Setting Up Flows

Setting up Tags What Are Tags? Tags are a way of identifying event-level data using labels you set at the account level. You can then apply those tags to generic items in events, especially custom registration statuses and custom registration properties for use in Certain Signal. (Tags can be used for other purposes as well, but this guide doesn’t cover that.)

For example, your events may have several custom registration statuses in addition to the standard ones. You can apply the same Tags to more than one status, or you might choose to give each one its own Tag.

When you set up a Flow in Certain Signal to send data to your target application when an attendee’s Registration Status changes, for example, you specify the tags applicable to those statuses, not the statuses themselves. That means the flow can apply to any event in your account.

Setting Tags Up for an Account 1. As an Administrator, go to Account Settings > Management > Tags. 2. Enter a Name and a Label for the tag. 3. Select the Object(s) to which the tag can apply; for example “Registration Statuses” and/or “Custom Registration Properties”. 4. Click Add. 5. Repeat as required for as many tags as you need. 6. Important: Add enough tags to apply to all of the following that you will use in flows (see Setting up Tags): a. Registration Statuses b. Custom Registration Properties 7. Also add enough tags to apply to all of the following that you will use in filters for flows (see Flow Filters): a. Attendee Types b. Events

Applying Tags in an Account In each event from which you want information to flow through Certain Signal, apply tags to the relevant information: Registration Statuses and Registration Custom Properties. (You can also tag Attendee Types and Events to filter registration records by attendee type or event; see Flow Filters.)

Default Registration Statuses These apply to all events, so an Administrator applies the tags at the account level. 1. Go to Account Settings > Management > Registration Statuses. 2. Add one or more Tags for each status. Important: Even if you don’t use any standard registration statuses, best practice is to set up tags for all of them, but it’s essential to tag at least the “New” status (which Certain uses “behind the scenes” when first processing each registration). If you do use standard reg statuses, it’s essential that you tag them all, so that you can use them in the Flows you configure in Signal: see page 9.

Applying Tags in an Event Custom Registration Statuses 1. If any of the Flows you configure in Signal will watch or activate for changes of Registration Status (see Available sources): In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Custom Statuses 2. Select at least one tag for each status.

Custom Registration Properties If any of the Flows you configure in Signal will watch or activate for Custom Reg Properties (see Flow Data Source): 1. In each event, go to Plan > Configure. 2. Under Custom Registration Properties, select at least one tag for each custom reg property in the event.

Standard Registration Properties (Automatic) These tags are set up for you automatically, with names identical to the properties themselves: Complete, Badge Printed, On To Do List, Invoice Generated, and Test. You only see them in Signal, where, just like Custom Reg Properties, you can activate Flows for them (see Activate for …). There’s nothing to edit on Certain Platform.

Attendee Types (Optional– for use with filters – see Flow Filters) 1. In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Attendee Types. 2. Add one or more Tags for each attendee type on which you may wish to filter registrations. (See Filters on see Flow Filters.) Events (Optional– for use with filters – see Flow Filters) 1. In each event that you may wish to include in a filter (for example, to ensure that only registrations for that event are passed to your target application): 2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Details. 3. Add one or more Tags for the event.

Registration Questions (Optional– for use with mapping Certain fields to fields your target application – see Mappings.) 1. In each event in which you use registration questions to capture data from attendees and wish to pass those answers and/or questions to your target application: 2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Questions. 3. Select just one Tag for each question. (Selecting more could result in duplicate data in your target application.)

Opening Certain Signal

When Signal is activated for your account, the Account Settings > Implementation menu—available to Administrators—includes an extra option:

Click that link to open Certain Signal in a separate window; it runs separately from Certain Platform.

Note: To return from Signal to Certain Platform at any time, click the dedicated button.

Setting up a Connection What are Connections? A Connection in Certain Signal specifies how to connect to your target application. You can have multiple connections, including to other third-party applications. (Marketo, Eloqua and Salesforce are covered in separate guides.) Each Flow (see Setting Up Flows) requires a Connection. Multiple Flows may use the same Connection. You can set up a Connection before configuring your first Flow, but you can also do so while configuring a Flow.

Adding a Connection

As an Administrator, you may set up one or more Connections for your account. You need only do so once – you can then use them in the Flows you set up.

1. Go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Real-Time Data Integration.

2. As noted above, Certain Signal opens in a separate window.

3. Click Connections in the left navigation panel.

4. Click Add A Connection in the Connection List page that opens.

5. Enter the details in the Connection Setup screen that opens.

6. Click Save & Test.

7. If the test is successful, click Close. If it’s not, check that the values in step 5 are all correct.

Setting Up Flows What is a “Flow”? A Flow is a configuration to manage the flow of data from Certain to your target application. You create Flows from the landing page in Signal. You may configure several flows for an account, which might all use the same Connection (explained above). You only need to configure a flow once at the account level. When a flow is complete, it will start picking up data for each event in that account within about a minute.

The Flow List As an Administrator in Certain Platform, go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Real-Time Data Integration. Certain Signal opens in a separate browser window. The main screen in Signal is the Flow List, which lists all flows. The Status column shows whether a flow is completely set up. The Active column shows whether the flow is running. Use the toggle to change a flow from Active to Inactive, or vice versa.

Configuring a Flow

Click ADD A FLOW to start setting up a new flow – see screenshot overleaf. The configuration consists of:

Live vs Test

The Live toggle determines whether the Flow is Live or Test:

Best Practice: Set a new flow up as Test and test it before setting it to Live.

Flow Data Source Next, specify the Source of data for the flow (optionally applying Flow Filters). The Source of a Flow is what the Flow will watch for in your data in Certain and when it will activate based on that data. For example, it might watch for any change to a Registration Status and activate if an attendee’s status has changed to a status tagged as “Registered”.

Available sources

Note: You can always save an incomplete Flow and complete it at a later date. As soon as a Flow is complete, it will start picking up data after the usual minute’s delay.

Activate for …

Choose what the flow should activate for by selecting one or more tags in each appropriate object’s dropdown list. The tags available for selection are those set up for that object; see Setting up Tags. For example, the tags for Registration Statuses include Registration Status tags, which you can apply to:

Flow Filters

You can filter the data going into a flow by selecting fields in any of these three filter types: Event fields, Profile fields, and Attendee Type tags. The flow will only include a registration if it meets the rule(s) specified in the filter.

Flow Destination Select Webhooks from the integrations set up by Certain for your account. (You may have this and others to choose from.)

Setting up a Destination 1. Give the Destination a Name of your choice 2. Select the Connection to use Note: You can instead click New Connection to add a connection; the process to set one up is the same as described on Setting up a Connection. 3. Select Webhook as the Action for this connection. 4. Select or add the mappings to use, as described next.

Mappings

Select or set up a set of mappings. You can have two: one for the Payload and (if required) one for the Http Header. The setup process is the same for each:

Metrics Dashboard To see the statistics available in Signal, click Metrics in the left navigation panel when looking at flows. The choices in the new navigation panel depend on the flows and their targets. The first item will be Insights. Other links will be Webhook Posts and Account Insights.

Account Insights

Choose between Live Flows or Test Flows. Set the period for which you want to see the data (e.g., the last 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, or a number of days). There are three tabs: Summary, Troubleshooting, and Activity Feed.

The Retry Queue When an action fails, it joins the Retry Queue and will be retried. A maximum of three automatic retries applies per action. If an item is resolved, it will be removed from the queue. If not, contact your administrator or ask Certain for help. The retry interval depends on the reason's severity.

Filtering the Queue You can filter the Retry Queue by Integration (usually Webhooks), Status (All Statuses, Retry, Error, Failed, Done), and Category (All Categories, General, System, Config, Certain API, Connection, etc.).

Submitting to the Queue Click an item in the Retry Queue to see its full details. If you can solve the issue, click Submit to Retry Queue to move the item to the front of the queue.

Replaying a Flow If you change an aspect of a flow while it has been running, you may want to replay that flow for the same registrations as before. This is not done directly by the UI. You can ask Certain to arrange it. You may specify a date range or an event.

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