Unanswered

JSON API Result: HOWTO Extract / Process the results ?

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by FpassX

Hi everyone,

I have a JSON API. I can query it, filter on data, make textual search etc...
The answer is a list of results in an json array.

Can I with MS Flow, have a periodic check, given a specific query (ex: theme:energy, location:Paris), and check if there is new results for my query ?

ie. getting the list of results, and checking if there is new results since the last time ?

If it's not an out of the box feature, I also have timestamps for my record, I can query : result_timestamp > "last time I checked" but for this I need to store a status of the periodic queries...

Then, if there is new results, trigger a notification, an action, an email, an SMS or whatever...

I can really simply do it with Zappier, and as I heard that Microsoft Flow is the same kind of tool, I'm trying without luck for the moment.

Help appreciated 😄

Thanks !

All responses (2)

Answers (0)

SameerCh on at

Like (0)

Report

Re: JSON API Result: HOWTO Extract / Process the results ?

Hi

Thanks for sharing your feedback!
This is something that we want to make easy. Currently, I dont believe we are quite there yet.

Your scenario is akin to what we call a polling trigger. The polling trigger works by checking an API endpoint for new data. In fact, many of our built-in triggers work that way. The challenge for us has been to keep track of the "timestamp" marker. We have recently rolled out the support for defining polling triggers. It has some limitations but I think it should work for your scenario - esp since you contol the backend API as well.

We dont have a blog post/doc on it yet. But this is how it works:
> Your API has a query parameter which can be used to check for new data AND it MUST be a timestamp (date-time)
> Your API response will typically be an array (or an object with an array) of objects that you want to return. One of the property MUST be a timestamp that can be used to specify the value of the query parameter

This is how the screen looks:

And this is where you can configure your query parameter and the value you need to use for that query parameter.

Thanks!
Sameer
v-yamao-msft on at

Like (0)

Report

Re: JSON API Result: HOWTO Extract / Process the results ?

Hi FpassX,

Please consider to use trigger “Recurrence” in your flow. Recurrence can trigger a flow at regular. You could adjust the Frequency and Interval according to your needs.

About checking if there is new result since the last time, please consider to add a Condition in your flow. About how to add a condition in your flow, please see this doc for more details:
https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/add-a-condition/

After the condition, you could add actions to send an email, send a push notification, etc.

Please try it on your side and feel free reply if you need more help.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao