In SimpleOne, REST Bot Engine allows implementing connectors with third-party services (such as messengers, AI systems, and so on) to solve various business tasks depending on the demand. As an example: when an incident is created, the responsible group receives notification to the specified messenger with the subject specified.

How to implement integration with the third-party service

1. Provide the preparations on the other side (register if needed, get an authorization token, check the API documentation).
2. Create a bot type record.
3. Configure REST methods used to interact with the third-party service.
4. Configure a bot instance.
5. Configure routing parameters.
6. Configure routing rules. 

Creating a bot type

A bot type is a connecting element for bot methods and bot instances. When created, you can easily specify which bots can use configured methods, and vice versa.

To create a new bot type, please complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to Bots API → Bot Types.
2. Click New and fill in the form, specify a Name for a bot type.
3. Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.

Configuring REST bot methods

In this section, you can configure REST API methods provided by the third-party system to interact with it. Bot methods are bound with routing rules and routing parameters. 

To create and configure a new bot method, please complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to Bots API → Bot Methods.
2. Click New and fill in the form.
3. Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.

Bot methods form fields

authorization:Bearer <token>; Content-Type:application/json

{
"channel": "<routing_parameter_0>",
"text": "<content>",
"thread_ts": "<routing_parameter_1>",
}

Configure a bot instance

Create a bot instance to perform integration further (use bot methods, routing rules).

To create a new bot, please complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to Bots API → Bots.
2. Click New and fill in the form.
3. Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.

Configuring routing parameters

Routing parameters are used in the bot routing rules, they allow to be more specific. 

The main purpose of this functionality is configuring correlations between column value upon a bot routing rule triggering and a column value used in the request body.

To create a routing parameter, please complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to Bots API → Routing Parameters.
2. Click New and fill in the form.
3. Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.

Configuring bot routing rules

Bot routing rules table contains conditions and rules to trigger; when conditions are met, the trigger performs a request to the external service. The request history can be found in the Related Lists area for every record.

To create a new bot routing rule, please complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to Bots API → Bot Routing Rules.
2. Click New and fill in the form.
3. Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.

Bot request history

In there, the bot requests history to third-party services is stored.

To check out the history, please complete the steps below.

1. Navigate to Bots API → Bot Request History.
2. Click on the record you need to inspect.

Implementation example

Consider an user case: you need to implement direct notification via messengers.

Input data you have:

First step

Create a notification method. For this, create a record in the Bot Method (sys_bot_method) table as described in this article above. Populate the Body field with the value below:

{
  "channel": "<routing_parameter_0>",
  "text": "<content>",
  "as_user": "true",
  "link_names": "true"
}

In this example, the "channel": "<routing_parameter_0>" bundle specifies that the channel key will substitute the routing_parameter_0 parameter when the request is sent.

Second step

Create a notification rule. For this, create a record in the Bot Routing Rule (sys_bot_routing_rule) table.

In our user case, the trigger will be the new record creation in the Task table.

Routing parameters are defined in the Routing by Column field of the related Routing Rule record and used for sending messages. You can specify more than one parameter in this field numbered starting from 0 (see example below):

{
  "channel": "<routing_parameter_0>",
  "thread": "<routing_parameter_1>",
  "text": "<content>",
  "as_user": "true",
  "link_names": "true"
}

To specify method content more precisely, use fields located in the Content tab of the Bot Routing Rule record.

return `Comment: ${current.additional_comments}`
  .replace(/(?<!\\)(?:((\\\\)*)\\)(?![\\/])/g, '\/')
  .replace(/"/g, '\\"')

Third step

Create a routing parameter. For this, create a record in the Routing Parameter (sys_routing_parameter) table. Fill in the field as described below: