Chatter REST API Overview
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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.
– 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 = "[email protected]";
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
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