IN THIS ARTICLE
Overview
This guide will show you how to connect any REST API with Databox and start building Custom Metrics. Rest APIs can be connected with no authentication, Basic Authentication, or API keys.
This feature and Custom API Integrations are available on the Professional and higher plans. Request a trial of Metric Builder by following these steps.
If you'd like us to help you get set up any REST API in Databox, please fill out this request form or book a call with one of our product experts:
- Free Databox users (or potential users) book a call here
- Paying Databox customers book a call here
How to connect your own REST API Data Source
IN THIS SECTION
How to connect a Custom REST API to Databox
How to activate a Custom REST API
Connection name A)
- A) Connection name: Enter the connection name for your Custom data connection. This is how it will appear throughout the Databox app.
- B) Description (optional): Enter the description for your Custom data connection.
- C) Base API URL: Define the Base API URL, which is the root URL for all your API requests. For example, if the API’s URL is "https://api.company.com/endpoint/example" or "https://api.company.com/users/list" use “https://api.company.com” as your Base URL.
You can change the root API URL anytime later as well, but it will impact all created Custom metrics and could result in non-functional metrics because of invalid request URLs.
- D) Custom authentication: Three different authentication methods are currently supported:
- None: makes API requests to a non-protected public API.
- Query parameters: requires you to define specific parameters to authenticate your requests.
- Headers: requires you to define specific parameters to authenticate your requests.
When selecting an authentication method, keep in mind that both Query parameters and Headers have the same structure (key, value) where you can define the necessary parameters to authenticate your requests.
You could also select None and add all necessary authentication parameters later on when building the Custom Metrics. This approach is not recommended because changing one authentication property in the future will require you to edit all custom metrics.
Pro Tip: If the API you are connecting supports standard Basic authentication, you should add custom authentication by setting the key of the query parameter to “Basic” and the value to “username:password” string encoded in base64.
- E) Activate: Click on the green Activate button to Activate Custom Rest API
Pro Tip: For Custom API Integrations using the OAuth authentication method, please book a call with one of our product experts to get a custom quote for a new integration.
How to create Custom Metrics
Once you have created the Custom Data Source connection, you can start creating Custom Metrics.
Learn more about how to create Custom Metrics, prepare API requests, and handle different use cases and limitations here.