Chatter REST API Overview

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Agenda

§  Why Chatter is important for developers §  Chatter REST API Use Cases

§  API Walk Through

§  Example Code

§  Q&A and application ideas

WHY CHATTER API?

Why the Chatter API – for IT

§  Make your applications social –  Better communication between silos and teams vs.

email

–  Build a searchable tribal knowledge base on your intranet

Why Chatter – for independent software vendors

§  Chatter is the news feed for the enterprise

§  Distribute your application virally in the feed.

§  Make your application social

§  Add functionality with minimal work –  Feeds, likes, comments

–  Groups

–  Mobile and desktop

Use Cases - Mobile

§  Build custom mobile applications, e.g. –  Product information apps –  Q&A

–  Note taking and case discussion for medical providers

http://github.com/cseymourSF

Use Cases – Intranet & Sharepoint

§  Add social interaction to document sharing and other external systems.

§  Move internal customer interaction into a group based queue

§  Push notifications of changes/updates into chatter.

http://chatter-intranet.heroku.com

Use Cases – Independent Software Vendors

§  Viral distribution

§  Social interaction §  Notifications

WALKTHROUGH

Introduction

§  The Chatter API is a REST-ful web service that exposes a corporation’s social data.

§  The Chatter API is hosted by Salesforce and uses OAuth2 for authentication

Chatter API Resources

§  Users –  Includes followers, following

§  Groups –  Includes members

§  Feed –  Includes comments, likes

§  Records –  Includes followers

§  Private Messages

§  Trending Topics

§  Recommendations

Chatter API or SObject REST API?

§  Chatter API provides: –  Localized data

–  All the feed data in 1 request –  Data matching what is shown in the web UI

–  Semantically rich resources

§  SObject REST API provides: –  Data directly from the database –  Arbitrary SOQL queries

§  You can mix and match - use the same OAuth tokens to access both

Authentication with OAuth2

§  Peace of mind for users: –  Authenticate through a standard Salesforce login site

–  Apps don’t need to cache a user’s login credentials –  Users can revoke authorization for an app later on

§  Info on using OAuth2 can be found on DeveloperForce

Authenticating and Authorizing

User Authentication App Authorization

Authorizing a Chatter API request

§  Oauth access token is used in the “Authorization” header of a Chatter API request:

Chatter API URLs

<instance URL> + “/services/data/v23.0” + <relative path> + <query string>

§  For example:

http://na11.salesforce.com/services/data/v23.0/chatter/users/00500C23498934

Chatter API Requests

§  An app can request to access and modify social enterprise data: –  Getting the news feed:

•  GET /chatter/feeds/news/me

–  Removing a feed item: •  DELETE /chatter/feed-items/005Q00593948398

–  Following a record: •  POST /chatter/users/me/following&subjectId=00500C23498934

Chatter API Responses

§  Response can be provided in JSON or XML format §  Response gives a “representation” holding one of:

–  requested data

–  confirmation that an operation has completed

–  errors

Sample JSON Response

§  GET /chatter/users/me: { currentStatus = ”chilling";

email = "chris.seymour@salesforce.com";

name = "Chris Seymour";

photo = { largePhotoUrl = "https://c.gus.content.soma.force.com/profilephoto/729B00000004FUd/F";

smallPhotoUrl = "https://c.gus.content.soma.force.com/profilephoto/729B00000004FUd/T";

};

title = "Senior Member of Technical Staff";

... }

Users Resource

§  Using /chatter/users/<id> and sub-resources: –  Getting user profile

–  Uploading a new photo –  Following records

–  Getting followers –  Retrieving group memberships

§  The alias “me” can be used in place of <id> to access information about the logged-in user

Getting a User Profile

§  GET https://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v22.0/chatter/users/005D0000001KfqUIAS

§  Response includes Chatter user profile data

Following a Record

§  POST https://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v22.0/chatter/users/me/following –  Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded –  Body or param: subjectId=005D0000001Khtv

§  Response includes a URL that can be DELETEd to remove the subscription

Groups Resource

§  Using /chatter/groups/<id>, and sub-resources: –  Getting group information

–  Getting/adding group members –  Getting/posting group photo

Getting Group Info

§  GET https://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v22.0/chatter/groups/0F9D00000000Enl

§  Response includes Chatter group description and member count

Adding a Group Member

§  POST https://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v22.0/chatter/groups/0F9D00000000Enl/members –  Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded –  Body: userId=005D0000001Khtv

Feeds

§  Feed resources provide the feed item data found in the Chatter web UI

§  Issue a GET for feed items using a URL like:

/chatter/feeds/<feed type>/feed-items §  Feed responses are paged

News Feed

§  /chatter/feeds/news/me

User Profile Feed

§  /chatter/feeds/user-profile/<user id>

Record Feed

§  /chatter/feeds/record/<id>

Feed Items

§  Feed item properties include: –  createdDate –  type: text post, user status, link post, file post, or tracked

change

–  actor: user or record that posted the feed item

–  comments: first page of comments –  likes: first page of likes

–  body: unformatted text and formatted message segments

Feed Item Body

§  The feed item “body” holds both formatted and unformatted body text properties: –  text: body as unformatted text –  message segments: body as a list of rich segments:

•  Text

•  Hashtag

•  Link

•  Mention (including user information)

Feed Item Body

Text Mention Text Hashtag Text

Common Feed Operations

§  Post a new feed item to a user profile: POST /chatter/feeds/user-profile/005x77839472/feed-items?text=this%20is%20my%20post%20text

§  Comment on a feed item: POST /chatter/feed-items/005x6659304892/comments?text=some%20exciting%20comment

§  Unlike a feed item: DELETE /chatter/likes/005x884930284

Example Code – iOS and Rails

iOS

Ruby

App Building Tips

§  Learn OAuth2 –  which “flow” is suitable for your application context?

–  how much trust are you putting in end-user devices?

§  Use separate remote access apps for production and development

Common Stumbling Points

§  Group feeds are just record feeds: /chatter/feeds/record/<group id>

§  A “user profile” feed is different from a “user record” feed

§  News feed can only be retrieved for the logged-in user

§  Following an object is described by a “subscription”. DELETE the subscription to stop following

Rate Limiting and Availability

§  Rate limiting: –  each user + remote access app combination gets 200 requests

per hour

§  The Chatter API is on in all organizations that have Chatter –  There is nothing the org needs to purchase, its default on.

§  All user types that support Chatter may use the API –  Portal users are not supported, since they don’t have chatter.

–  Users must have the “api enabled” user profile perm on.

§ The Chatter API makes your applications social § Easy to integrate with existing applications § Great for mobile too

Key Take Aways

How do I begin?

§ The Chatter API is available now in all organizations that have Chatter

See the resource page for documentation, sample apps, tips, and a video of this presentation

https://developer.force.com/chatter-api