A read action reads data from your customer's SaaS on a scheduled basis and send them to Destinations that you define.

  read:
      objects:
        ...

Defining reads

To read an object, you need to specify:

• objectName: to indicate which object you'd like to read. This should match the name of the object in the official documentation for the SaaS API.
• destination: the name of the destination that you've defined
• schedule: how frequently the read should happen. This value must be a schedule in cron syntax
• backfill (optional): whether Ampersand should read historical data when a customer installs an integration. If omitted, then we will only incrementally read data that has been created or updated after that point. See Backfill behavior for details.
• a list of fields

      objects:
        - objectName: lineItem
          destination: lineItemWebhook
          schedule: "0 */12 * * *" # every 12 hours
          backfill:
            defaultPeriod:
              days: 30
          ...

🗺️

On the roadmap

The ability for your users to define their own sync schedules.

Known fields

Fields can be either be required or optional. If a field is required, then all users who install this integration will need to give your app read access to that field. If a field is optional, then users can choose whether they'd like your app to read that field. For standard fields, you will specify:

• fieldName: the name of the field from the official SaaS API documentation, converted to lower case. For example, if you'd like to read the first name of a contact, write firstname.

      objects:
        - objectName: contact
          destination: contactWebhook
          schedule: "0 */12 * * *" # every 12 hours
          requiredFields:
          - fieldName: firstname
          - fieldName: lastname
          - fieldName: email
          optionalFields:
          - fieldName: company

Allow users to pick from all fields

If you want to give your user the option to pick from any of the fields in their Object, use optionalFieldsAuto: all. The UI component will populate a list of all the fields pulled from their object and allow them to pick which ones your app will be able to read.

      objects:
        - objectName: contact
          destination: contactWebhook
          schedule: "0 */12 * * *" # every 12 hours
          requiredFields:
          - fieldName: firstname
          - fieldName: lastname
          - fieldName: email
          # All other fields are optional
          optionalFieldsAuto: all

Field mappings

You might want to ask your users during the set up of the integration to map a field (standard or custom) to a concept in your product, because your various customers might be using different fields for the same purpose. Field mappings can either be inside requiredFields or optionalFields.

For these fields, you'll specify:

• mapToName: when we deliver the data from this field to you, this is the name that we'll use to identify the field.
• mapToDisplayName: the phrasing to display to the user in the set up UI component when asking them to select a custom field (e.g. For the config below, the helper text will say, "Which of your custom fields map to Contact Notes?")
• default (optional): the default field, you should only use standard fields as defaults.
• prompt (optional): additional context that you want to show your user in the set up UI Component about this field. This should be a full sentence.

      objects:
        - objectName: contact
          destination: contactWebhook
          optionalFields:
          # field that your app created
          - fieldName: myAppPriorityScore
          # field that your user created
          - mapToName: notes
            mapToDisplayName: Contact Notes
            prompt: These are notes that you would like to surface in our app. 
            ...

Backfill behavior

Backfill behavior describes whether Ampersand will do an initial read of your customer's historic data when they connect their SaaS instance, and how far back we will read. For example, if your integration reads a customer's contacts stored in their CRM, you can configure whether you want to only read new and updated contacts going forward, or if you also want to do an initial backfill of the pre-existing contacts in their CRM.

No backfill

If you only want to read new and updated records moving forward and do not wish to read any pre-existing records, then you can simply omit the backfill key in the integration definition, or you can write 0 days as the default period.

      objects:
        - objectName: contact
          backfill:
            defaultPeriod:
              days: 0 # Omitting backfill object will also default to 0 days.
          ...

Full historical backfill

If you want to do a full backfill of all the existing records when a customer connects their SaaS instance, set fullHistory to true. If you have customers that have large SaaS instances, please ensure that your webhook endpoint can handle a high number of messages in quick succession. You may find it helpful to use a webhook gateway solution like Hookdeck.

      objects:
        - objectName: contact
          backfill:
            defaultPeriod:
              fullHistory: true
          ...

Limited time backfill

You can select a specific time frame for backfill, such as "the last 30 days" or "the last 90 days". Here's an example of how to do so:

      objects:
        - objectName: contact
          backfill:
            defaultPeriod:
              days: 30 # We will backfill the last 30 days of data
          ...

Example read action

integrations: 
 - name: readSalesforce
   provider: salesforce
   read:
     objects:
      
      - objectName: account
        destination: accountWebhook
        schedule: "0 */12 * * *" # every 12 hours
        requiredFields:
          - fieldName: id
          - fieldName: name
          - fieldName: industry
        optionalFields:
          - fieldName: annualrevenue
          - fieldName: website
              
      - objectName: contact
        destination: contactWebhook
        schedule: "0 */12 * * *" # every 12 hours
        requiredFields:
          - fieldName: id
          - fieldName: firstname
          - fieldName: lastname
          - fieldName: email
          - mapToName: pronoun
            mapToDisplayName: Pronoun
            prompt: We will use this word when addressing this person in emails we send out.
        optionalFieldsAuto: all
      

Example webhook message

Ampersand will do reads at the schedule you specify in amp.yaml. If there are any new or updated records since our last read, we will send you webhook messages. For the sample integration above, here's what a sample webhook message might look like for the Contact object:

{
 "projectId": "ampersand-project-id",
 "provider": "salesforce",
 "workspace": "salesforce-subdomain",
 "groupRef": "xyz-company",
 "groupName": "XYZ Company",
 "installationId": "installation-id",
 "objectName": "Contact",
 "result": [
  {
    "fields": {
      "id": "001Dp00000P8QurIAF",
      "firstname": "Sally",
      "lastname": "Jones",
      "email": "[email protected]"
    },
    "mappedFields": {
      "pronoun": "she",
    },
    "raw": {
      "id": "001Dp00000P8QurIAF",
      "firstname": "Sally",
      "lastname": "Jones",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "pronoun_custom_field": "she",
      // ... other fields for the record
    }
  },
  {
    "fields": {
      "id": "001Dp00000P9BusEIS",
      "firstname": "Taylor",
      "lastname": "Lao",
      "email": "[email protected]"
    },
    "mappedFields": {
      "pronoun": "they",
    },
    "raw": {
      "id": "001Dp00000P9BusEIS",
      "firstname": "Taylor",
      "lastname": "Lao",
      "email": "[email protected]"
      "pronoun_custom_field": "they",
      // ... other fields for the record
    }
  }
]}