Quickstart

1. Create a developer account

If you haven't done so already, please create a developer account.

2. Define your app

Every app corresponds to a Plugin object. The plugin contains all the information Xola needs to display your app within the Xola App Store.

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"App" and "Plugin" are synonymous

App is the consumer-friendly term and is predominantly used in all customer-facing communication.

Plugin is the technical term used to define an App and is primarily used by developers when building apps.

Here's an example of a plugin for the MailChimp app.

{
  "name" : "MailChimp",
  "summary" : "Push new customers from Xola to MailChimp",
  "description" : "- Easily add Xola customer data to your MailChimp lists.\n- With Xola's MailChimp integration, simply select which of your MailChimp Lists you want customers to be subscribed to.",
  "prerequisites" : [
    "You must have a MailChimp account in order to use this integration."
  ],
  "config" : [
    {
      "title" : "MailChimp V3 API Key",
      "fields" : [
        {
          "type" : "text",
          "name" : "mail_chimp_api_key",
          "label" : "MailChimp V3 API Key",
          "required" : true
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "webhooks" : {
    "events" : ["traveler.create", "traveler.update"],
    "apiVersion" : "2018-09-17",
    "url" : "https://mailchimp.plugin.xola.com/webhooks"
  },
  "tags" : ["marketing", "email", "sales", "communication", "customer"],
  "quickStartGuideDescription" : "Learn more in the help center >",
  "quickStartGuideUrl" : "https://help.xola.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015837352",
  "supportInstructions" : "Contact Xola Support using in-app chat, email [email protected] or call 415-404-9652; 1. We're here 24/7.",
  "thirdPartyDescription" : "MailChimp is the world’s largest marketing automation platform for small business. Send beautiful emails, connect your e-commerce store, advertise, and build your brand. Millions of people and businesses around the world trust MailChimp to publish the right content, to the right person, at the right place, at the right time.",
  "thirdPartyUrl" : "https://mailchimp.com"
}

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Full details about all possible plugin configuration properties can be found in the API Reference documentation.

3. Handle webhooks

In the MailChimp example, we are interested in whenever a traveler is created or updated (see the webhooks property in the manifest). With the traveler.* webhooks, Xola will notify the specified url anytime a new traveler object is created or updated.

Learn more about supported webhooks

For your hello world app, you can even point the url to Webhook Tester to see what they look like.

For a real world app, you would expose the url to the Internet and appropriately handle any data Xola sends.

4. Submit app

Make a POST request with your JSON payload to the plugins endpoint (API Reference).

# Production environment
https://elrond.xola.com/plugins

# Sandbox environment
https://elrond.sandbox.xola.com/plugins

When you submit your app, Xola will automatically create a user account and an API key unique to this app. The response will contain these details. These credentials are not the same as your developer account or its credentials. Remember to keep both separate.

At this point, your app is in a pending state. Someone from Xola will then review and approve your app. We may reach out to you for clarification if needed.

5. Install app

Once approved, your app will begin appearing on the Xola App Store. To install it, login using a seller account, navigate to Apps, find your app, and install.

If you don't have access to a seller account, please reach out to us at [email protected].