If you would like to use your visit data with a software application that doesn't integrate with Zapier, then our raw Webhooks integration might be the solution for you.
What's a Webhook?
A webhook is a mechanism by which one server can notify another server of activities that have occurred. They are sometimes referred to as a "Reverse API" since the server that is looking to act upon an event that happens with other server doesn't need to constantly ask if there's updated data. Instead a "notification" is sent (via an HTTP POST in our case) to a URL that can process the notification (a JSON document of visit data in our case) and the server can then process the data and perform whatever actions are necessary with that data.
Along with some code, webhooks allow you to use data that The Receptionist collects in just about any way that you can imagine!
Getting Started
First, you will need to have a server that is capable of handling HTTP POST request made available on the public Internet via a URL. This could be a server that you deploy code to, or it may be an API gateway (like IFTTT or hosted Azure service) that can run code for you. Once you have a way to receive notifications from our server, you will then want to visit the Webhooks section of our website, click on the "New Webhook" button and provide the following information:
Name: Using something descriptive to help you remember in the future what server or process runs with this webhook.
URL: This should be the full URL where the notification should be delivered (via HTTP POST).
Token: This optional field allows you to ensure requests to your endpoint include a token in the HTTP Authorization header. Your endpoint should then validate that this token is being passed to verify the request. We will set the Authorization header to the string "Bearer [token]".
Location: If your account has multiple locations, this dropdown will allow you to limit the notifications to just one location.
Button: This dropdown allows you to choose to limit the notifications being sent to a specific button if you would like.
Events: This allows you to choose which events your webhook will be notified about.
Once this is saved, our software will begin sending notifications to your URL whenever your selected events happen. Your software will then be responsible for handling the HTTP POST requests that are made, parsing the JSON document, and accomplishing whatever task you would like to be performed. The possibilities of what you can do are truly endless!
Troubleshooting
For every webhook that you create, it's possible to see a list of all of the notifications our system has sent to the webhook. It's also possible to see the full details of a given notification and even retry it. This makes it possible for you to potentially track down issues that might be happening with your webhook.
Additional Security
To provide additional security to your endpoint, our webhooks are sent from one of the following IP addresses:
54.173.229.200
54.175.230.252
You can configure your firewall to only allow connections from those IP addresses to your endpoint to ensure that only our server can make requests to your endpoint.