Using the Generic Connector

The Aisera platform provides many pre-built connectors. If the application you want to connect to isn't listed, you can create a Generic Integration and Generic Data Source with parameters that best fit your application.

Choose an Aisera Admin user to log into the External System

The owner of each system that you want to integrate with needs to provide credentials for an Aisera Admin (or a service user for your external system) to log into their system to transfer data to the Aisera platform (once or incrementally).

The system owner can restrict the Aisera user's permissions to just Read or just Read/Write, as long as the Aisera user has Export or Export/Import ability on the required data such as the User, Ticket, Knowledge Article, or Service Catalog fields of the source system.

Prepare

You will need to collect the following information before setting up a generic connector.

Endpoints

To integrate using a Generic connector, you will need an API Endpoint for the software you are connecting to.

Authentication

The Aisera platform supports integrations with many types of authentication. Refer to the Supported Authentication Types for Custom Integrations for more details on authentication options. So long as you know which type of authentication your data source uses you can create a Generic Integration.

Integration Setup

To create a generic integration:

1. Choose Settings > Integrations from the left navigation menu of the Aisera Administration application.

2. Click on the + New Integration button in the upper-right corner.

3. In the menu, select Generic and click Next

   
4. Provide a Name and an Endpoint for your new integration and click Next.

   
5. Choose an authentication type from the Auth Type drop-down.

   
6. The dialog box will change to allow you to enter all of the parameters for the authentication type you want to use.

   
7. When you’re done entering parameters, select the OK button..

8. As a best practice, choose the OAuthPassword authentication and fill all the fields: Username, Password, Client ID, Client Secret, and Custom Headers (see the format in the screenshot below):

9. Check the Use Raw Token option.

   
10. Add the Access Token URL provided by the software that you are integrating with.

11. Select OK to save the integration.

Data Sources Setup

After configuring a Generic integration, you can configure your Data Source.

To create a Generic Data Source for the Generic Connector:

1. Choose Settings > Data Sources from the left navigation menu of your Aisera Administration application.

2. Type in the name of the data source you want to use with the generic connector.

3. Choose the desired actions to perform with the data source by selecting functions from the Functions dropdown.

   
4. Select the Integration for your generic connector.

   
5. The remaining parameters rely on the chosen functions. Input the required parameters and select Next.

   An Incremental setting will crawl for entries that are updated at a later date than the timestamp of the last successful crawl.

6. In the Configuration tab, enter the same Headers used in the Integration Setup. Afterward, click Next.

   
7. Click Next to accept the defaults for Template and Ingestion Configuration.

8. Click Next to move on to the Overrides and Transformations window.

9. Data Sources for Generic integrations can use any number of Transformation Scripts in the Overrides tab of the Data Source Configuration window. Input any Configurations or Document Transformation scripts and Select OK to save the data source.

Document Transformation Scripts

Transformation scripts are used by Data Sources to modify the data entries as they are passed in or out of the Aisera Platform. They can be used to indirectly filter data as it is ingested into the Aisera platform, modify JSON values before they enter into the data pipeline, or to modify data generated by the Aisera Platform before it is sent to external systems.

If you have a unique use case that requires specific Document Transformation Scripts or Configurations, please contact your Aisera support team for assistance.

Post setup actions

Data Maps

After setting up your Generic Data Source, configure the connector to map incoming request data to fields compatible with the Aisera Platform.

When a Data Source ingests data from a Rest API, the entries are fetched in JSON format.

Field mappings describe the link between response items in a JSON entry and the corresponding Aisera value. A field mapping is a JSON path that guides the connector in extracting values from the retrieved JSON, mapping them to fields within the Aisera Platform.

Some data will be mapped by default. You will need to edit or delete existing fields, and create custom fields to match the data source you are connecting with. For more information on this process, reference the section on Field Mapping.