Over the past couple of years we have been working hard at removing as many roadblocks as we could to enable non-developers (aka almost everybody) to achieve with IntuiFace what was, until now, only achievable by developers with deep skills around interactive apps. And do this for a wide variety of platforms. With triggers and actions, interface assets, bindings and Excel, you have it (almost) all now… In full honesty I think we have been doing a pretty decent job.
However, there is one thing that has resisted to our efforts: seamlessly accessing, from within IntuiFace, any kind of API out there. The best thing we came up with until now is: go to an API developer page, figure out the API call response and build an IntuiFace interface asset (under the covers, an .ifd file) that will “teach” IntuiFace how to talk to this API. It’s not easy, even for a Web developer!
Why are APIs so important? Because that’s the way you can access any kind of information (some of which you can’t get otherwise) or automate things (vs. manually perform them through tedious UIs) supplied either by your company or, more importantly, by any source or any service on the Internet. APIs are the new gates to the digital world. And there are thousands and thousands APIs out there just waiting to be harvested!
We want to smooth things dramatically, whether it’s about discovering APIs, getting IntuiFace to immediately “understand” the content of the data exchanged with an API or even proposing various ways to present and interact with that data. That’s what we want to bring you: frictionless access to this infinite resource. It’s an ambitious goal, but that’s why we are here: enabling you to build great UX, by yourself, in record time, without coding.
Now, we want you to do a little bit of work too. Send us any API (and API calls) you would love to be able to access in your IntuiFace experiences. The more the better for us. With your help, we want to take into account as many scenarios and options as we can get. Bring us your favorite API!
One area that would help me with solutions for tradeshow exhibitors would be having the ability to link with the official trades show lead/registration system. This would involve two key interfaces: 1) Ability to connect with the hardware (BarCode Scanners, RFID, Magnetic Strip etc. )that is being used to read the show badges. 2) Would be taking the code or contact ID number that is collect by scanning the badge and accessing the full data associated with the code/ID number. That would involve working the the API of the official show registration company. While there are many companies in this market here are 2 of the major players
The end goal would enable an exhibitor to scan the badge of a booth visitor and then pull all the individuals contact information from the registration company data base, at which point giving Intuiface the ability to use the contact information to populate any field within Interface such as a form.
As you wrote, one of the key steps would be to have an access to the API of the official Show Registration company. Is such API something you came across already (vs. data download as commonly proposed by these platforms)?
I just wanted to clarify the statements above. Can we use a scanner for Collecting the trade show data from badges with our designs? Usually you just have to find the separator denominator for each trade show badge and you can still log all of the badge information. Im actually about to try to attache a bar code scanner to the systems and see if I can get it to work.
The other question is: there are some apps that will automatically scan trade show badges on phones. Would it be possible to use it as an external app in our designs?
One very cool project would be get information of the user from Facbeook. I agree users avoid typing password on public interactive display, but one solution would be acessing FB through user devices. Facebook allow it, asking the user to type a PIN on his mobile device (at Facebook)
I wonder if a good general API to integrate with would be an API software…like Zapier or IFTTT?
You can check out Zapier’s app directory here: Explore All Apps | Zapier
Thank you Marcelo for pointing that new Facebook way of login when in a public place ti us. That’s very interesting and might unlock the reluctance we had integrating with Facebook. We have re-opened the internal discussions about putting this integration on our roadmap. Instagram has recently changed its API access policy making the integration almost impossible, so, as Instagram is owned by Facebook, it will follow soon the same login-for-device policy.
Alex: W already provide the same kind of integration via Segment.io using IntuiFace Data Tracking (see app directory supported by Segment here: Integration Catalog | Twilio Segment). Each data point collected in an experience can be forwarded to Segment then to any platform listed.
Thanks @Vincent, I remember seeing this when the data point plans were released, but hadn’t really looked into Segment.io. Looks pretty cool - someday I’ll have some time to test it out and see what we can use it for!
Hi guys! I’m extremely new to intuilab. I have a great idea, but don’t know where to turn for help. We use a online software for our business for CRM and production management. I would like to create a touch screen solution for the employees on the production/manufacturing floor. The software makers have provided a page for their API available for use. Please let me know if it is possible for intuilab to create a new more exciting way of collecting data, and the two programs work together? Thanks.
I created a test account on shopvox and had a look at their documentation. Once you have your account_id and authToken (visible in your settings page), you can easily access all the web services of their api adding these 2 parameters in the requests.
You will find here a sample descriptor file that will the contacts of a shopvox account. Just replace the credentials in the properties with your own ones to see all your contacts in Composer.
Please open a dedicated thread if you want to talk more about integrating shopvox with IntuiFace
Thank You for the testing of this. On their documentation, they have a “start” and “stop” as if an employee was working on a specific job. What we were thinking is that an employee could walk up to the touch screen select the next job, click and drag it to his/her workstation and then they could click a start and stop button (or a trigger would start the job when they drop it on their work station) Each job in ShopVox has an uploaded image of what that project is.
So to create a visual floor plan of the shop with an image of say the “paint booth”, “welding station”, “vinyl cutter” and a “wide format printer”
I’m not sure this is something that can be done unless we do a enterprise subscription?
Can you set up a Intuiface file with what you already did, that I could log in and try?
You can use the file I attached earlier and create your own project following the instructions of this article.
Unless you get an Enterprise Edition, you can create the project and test it but you won’t be able to save it.
I think we have been doing a pretty decent job.