HTTP Request

The HTTP Request activity fetches information from an external data source such as a CRM using standard HTTP protocols.

Basic Auth and OAuth 2.0 attributes are supported for authenticated endpoints.

The following sections enable you to configure the HTTP Request activity:

General Settings
HTTP Request Settings
Parse Settings
Output Variables

General Settings


Parameter	Description
Activity Label	Enter a name for the HTTP Request activity.
Activity Description	(Optional) Enter a description for the activity.

HTTP Request Settings


Parameter	Description
Use Authenticated Endpoint	Enables the ability to make an HTTP request to an authenticated endpoint. By default, this toggle button is on.
Connector	Choose the Connector from the drop-down list. The drop-down list displays the name of the Connectors configured in the Control Hub. The Connector provides a common location to store credentials for the service you want to access. For example, the Salesforce Connector validates and allows connectivity to the Salesforce account. This Connector can then be referenced from within the HTTP Request activity to make a request. This essentially creates the domain section of the URL. To configure a connector on Control Hub, see the Set Up Integration Connectors for Webex Contact Center article.
Request Path	Enter the request path for the HTTP request. This field displays when the Use Authenticated Endpoint toggle button is on.
Request URL	Defines the Request URL which spans both domain and request paths for unauthenticated endpoints. This field displays when the Use Authenticated Endpoint toggle button is off.
Method Types: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, OPTIONS, HEAD	Defines the HTTP request activity that supports the following popular methods: GET: Request data from a specified resource. POST: Send data to a server to create or update a resource. PUT: Replaces all current representations of the target resource with the request payload. PATCH: Apply partial modifications to a resource. DELETE: Delete the specified resource. OPTIONS: Describe the communication options for the target resource. HEAD: Asks for a response identical to that of a GET request, but without the response body.
Query Parameters	Defines parameters that you pass as part of the HTTP Request. The web server provides these extra parameters to use, for example, to make a GET Request. In the Key‐Value columns, enter the key for the query and the associated value that needs to be sent with the query. The parameters are a list of key-value pairs that are separated with the ampersand (&) symbol. You can also use the variable values in the double curly braces syntax to pass variable values. For example, if you want to fetch the account balance of a customer based on the ANI, depending on the data store service APIs, the key and value can be: Key: `ANI` Value: `{{NewPhoneContact.ANI}}` To add a query parameter, click Add New. This adds a row where you can enter the respective key-value pairs. You can add as many query parameters as required as part of the HTTP Request.
HTTP Request Headers	Defines the HTTP headers that let the client pass additional information with an HTTP request. Request headers such as Accept, Accept‐, or If‐ allow to perform conditional requests along with other headers such as Cookie and User‐Agent. For example, as part of a GET Request, use: GET /home.html HTTP/1.1 Host: developer.mozilla.org User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.9; rv:50.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/50.0 Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8 Accept Language: en‐US,en;q=0.5 Accept Encoding: gzip, deflate, br Referer: https://developer.mozilla.org/testpage.html Connection: keep‐alive Upgrade‐Insecure‐Requests: 1 If‐Modified‐Since: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 02:36:04 GMT If‐None‐Match: "c561c68d0ba92bbeb8b0fff2a9199f722e3a621a" Cache‐Control: max‐age=0 To add an HTTP Header, click Add New. This adds a row where you can enter the respective key‐value pairs. You can add as many HTTP headers as required as part of the HTTP Request.
Content Type	Specifies the expected content type of the request body. Application/ JSON, Form URL Encoded, TOML, XML, and YAML are supported content types.
Request Body	Specifies the data bytes transmitted in an HTTP transaction message, immediately following the headers if there are any. In certain types of HTTP Requests such as a POST or PUT request, you can send a request body that specifies the content to update at the target resource.
Response Timeout	Specifies the connection timeout for the HTTP Request. Default is set at 2000 milliseconds.
Number of Retries	Specifies the number of times the HTTP Request is attempted after failure. Retry for service is unavailable. This parameter is used if the status code is 5xx; for example, 500 or 501.

Parse Settings

This section enables you to parse the response generated from the HTTP Request into different variables. This configuration is optional because not all HTTP Request scenarios require parsing.

Parse Settings
Parameter	Description
Content Type	Specifies the expected content type of the response body. JSON, TOML, XML, and YAML are the supported content types.
Output Variable	Choose a variable to contain the data from a specific section of the HTTP Request response object.
Path Expression	Define the Path Expression for parsing the response object. Depending on the response object data structure and the reason to extract a subset of information, the Path Expression varies. Data is normalized to an object hierarchy before Path Expression execution, so JSONPath is used in the response object regardless of the configured Content Type.

Output Variables

The HTTP Request returns the following output variables:

HTTPRequest1.httpStatusCode: Returns the status code of the HTTP.

These response codes are classified into five main categories:
- Informational responses (100–199)
- Successful responses (200–299)
- Redirects (300–399)
- Client errors (400–499)
- Server errors (500–599)
HTTPRequest1.httpResponseBody: Returns the response body for the HTTP Request.
HTTPRequest1.httpResponseHeaders: Returns the header information from the response.

Content Type Formats

The following examples describe sample input Content Type formats and the JSON response.

Content Type XML

Use this tool to convert XML into JSON format https://www.convertjson.com/xml-to-json.htm.

XML Input Format:

<note>
  <to>Tove</to>
  <from>Jani</from>
  <heading>Reminder</heading>
  <body>Test application</body>
</note>

Data/JSON Normalized Response

{
   "note": {
      "to": "Tove",
      "from": "Jani",
      "heading": "Reminder",
      "body": "Test application"
   }
}

Example JSON Path Expression: Use $.note.from to get the value as Jani.

Content Type TOML

Use this tool to convert TOML to JSON format https://www.convertjson.com/toml-to-json.htm.

TOML Input Format:

title = "TOML Example"
[owner]
name = "Tom Preston-Werner"
dob = 1979-05-27T07:32:00-08:00

Data/JSON Normalized Response

{
   "title": "TOML Example",
   "owner": {
      "name": "Tom Preston-Werner",
      "dob": "1979-05-27T15:32:00.000Z"
   }
}

Example JSON Path Expression: Use $.owner.name to get the value as ‘Tom Preston-Werner’.

Content Type YAML

Use this tool to convert YAML to JSON format https://www.convertjson.com/yaml-to-json.htm.

YAML Input Format:

# An employee record
martin:
  name: Martin D'vloper
  job: Developer
  skill: Elite

Data/JSON Normalized Response

{
   "martin": {
      "name": "Martin D'vloper",
      "job": "Developer",
      "skill": "Elite"
   }
}

Example JSON Path Expression: Use $.martin.job to get the value Developer.

Content Type JSON

Use the JSON Expression Evaluator https://jsonpath.herokuapp.com/.

JSON Input Format:

{
   "martin": {
      "name": "Martin D'vloper",
      "job": "Developer",
      "skill": "Elite"
   }
}

Data/JSON Normalized Response

{
   "martin": {
      "name": "Martin D'vloper",
      "job": "Developer",
      "skill": "Elite"
   }
}

Example JSON Path Expression: Use $.martin.job to get the value Developer.