I have a flow that successfully posts (creates new customers) via the API.
I need the information that is in the response bodies from the post as it contains the new system-generated Customer Id’s, and I’d like to use those to update existing records in another system.
How can I pull the response body from by post back into Parabola?
Hey Annika,
Right now, Parabola does not show the response from an API request sent from the Send to an API step. The only way to see a response from a POST request like this would be to use an Enrich with an API step.
You could use that step to create your customers, and then use the response from that request to make your request to add the customer ID to your other system. The only issue is that the Enrich with an API step will run anytime you update something upstream from it in your flow, which can happen a lot while building a flow (as I am sure you have seen). When that happens, the same customers may be POSTed to your first API.
The other way to get those IDs would be to use a separate flow and pull all of your customers from that API into Parabola, and then send those to your other service. The flow just would need to run after the first one is completed. You could connect a Run another Parabola Flow step after your Send to an API step to accomplish this.
Feel free to make a feature request for the Send to an API step to log the response body into its results, though, as that would certainly be the cleanest way to accomplish this.
Thanks Brian. Can you expand on your second paragraph? Specifically -
You could use that step to create your customers, and then use the response from that request to make your request to add the customer ID to your other system.
I’m trying to understand how I could use the response from my request if Parabola does not show the response?
Yes I can! The Enrich with an API step does show the response! It’s the only way to make a request and get the response back in new columns.
The problem is that it will make live requests while you build your flow, so if you use it to take action (create customers) instead of just getting information, you may find that it attempts to create the same customers many times while you build your flow.
Let me know if that helps, if you’d like additional clarity! This can be a tricky concept to wrap one’s head around.
Do you have an example you can share of this? I’m looking through the various recipes and other posts within the community and still don’t have a good idea of how to actually set up the Enrich with API step.
You would set it up in the exact same way that you set up your Send to an API step!