Reference Guide

Connectors

Connectors are essential for organisations who need their mobile apps to integrate with an existing IT eco-system. For example, your app might push new contacts into your cloud-based CRM, or pull a list of equipment from an asset-management system.

Connectors in Nutshell are like plug-ins, allowing you to plug your app into a third party system, and talk to it as though it was an integral part of your app.

Connector Types

There are several Connectors available within Nutshell, and our library is growing every day. There are two types of Connectors you can work with:

1. Platform-Specific Connectors: Designed to simplify the process of connecting with specific commonly-used platforms such as Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox or SQL Server.

2. Generic Connectors: Designed to be a “wild card” connector, flexible enough to integrate with most third party web services and APIs that support standard design patterns and protocols, such as FTPMore information on FTP can be found here, RESTMore information on REST can be found here or SOAPMore information on SOAP can be found here.

Platform-specific Connectors are generally much easier to work with, because Nutshell does most of the hard work for you. However, if you need to integrate with a less common platform for which a plug-in doesn’t currently exist, Nutshell’s generic Connectors will get you up and running, albeit with a little more leg-work.

Creating a Connector

Connectors are created within the Data area of the app builder, under the Connectors tab. When you first arrive, there won’t be any Connectors – just a handy button waiting for you to create one.

Any Connectors you create here will be available to use within your app

Connectors are created and configured within the Data tab, and then put to use in a workflow on the Canvas. To set one up, click the Create New Connector button and follow the step-by-step instructions.

The first pop-up you see will ask you what kind of Connector you’d like to create – either generic Connectors like FTP and REST, or platform-specific Connectors like Dropbox or Google Drive. Nutshell’s library of Connectors will be growing considerably in the near future.

Click on the type of Connector you’d like to set-up, and you’ll be taken through a step-by-step configuration process. We won’t go into detail here about what those steps are, since they’re different for every Connector. Specific Connectors are covered in more detail elsewhere in this reference guide.

Before you begin, you’ll need to familiarise yourself with the service you’re connecting to, and read their documentation. Have all usernames, passwords, authentication codes, tokens and client IDs handy before you start.

Using a Connector

Once you’ve set-up a Connector under the Data tab, it will become available to your workflow in the Data tool bar. Flip over to your workflow and open the Data tool bar, and you’ll see the Connector you’ve just set up, ready to be dragged onto the Canvas.

Whilst the set-up process took care of things like authorisation and authentication, the component you drag onto the Canvas can be used many times within a single app, and will let you choose which models and methods you’d like to call.

On-Canvas, Connectors are configured just like any other component – by changing settings in the Properties panel. What settings are available depends on what type of Connector you’re using.