Stop "calculating" for API enrichment

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#1

Hello,

I would like to use numverify API to revise 4k phone numbers.
It works well but Parabola “calculates” and uses all of my credit although it’s not the moment I export my results.
How oculd I disable the “calculating” step for the API ?
I guess a lot of APIs have such quotas and they really seem not compatible with parabola …
I would like to use my API credits only when I chose to run the flow but can’t find a way to do so in Parabola.
Thanks

Switch-off API enrichment while in dev mode
#2

Hey there! Right now there is no way to do this. You must use a Send to an API step to only calculate the step when the flow runs, but the Enrich with an API step will always calculate while you are building.

If you’d like, submit a request in #feature-requests so that others can vote on it!

#3

I totally agree with this. It uses up too many API calls during development.

My workaround is the following:

  • Have an input list that is either a CSV file on Dropbox or an API input from Airtable.
  • Develop with one ( or a few) records in one of the above. This safeguards my quota as well as the time it takes for enrichment to run on a large number
  • Publish the flow
  • Then switch out the csv file (or add to the Airtable view) and run the flow for real in production

If this is not exactly your situation, you get the idea – it is to have a test list that can be substituted once the flow has been published. However, note that you cannot use a CSV input directly in the flow because there is no way to do a substitution with this after the flow is published.

Hope this helps. I would vote for a dev/test switch for enrichment!

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#4

Thanks for your answer.
Those workarounds are interesting but quite heavy in terms of changes.
I opened a feature request here. Please vote ! :smiley:

#5

One more question though: How could I find a way to ignore blank cells while enriching with API ?

#6

As in you want the step to not hit the API if a row has a blank value in a certain cell? For that I would probably use a Remove rows step to remove those rows with blanks before using the Enrich with an API step. You can always add them back by filtering for them in another branch, and then using a Stack tables step to combine them back in.

#7

Is it really necessary to calculate the Pull from API every time I chance any of its settings??

I’m setting up “Pull from API” which will go through 520 pages and has a limit of 3 pages per minute. Does it mean I have to wait more than 2 hours just to wait for it to calculate? And then wait again once I run the Flow?

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#8

Hey Gustavo,

Thank you for your feedback. Unfortunately, any updates made to your flow need to calculate before it can be published live. If your service can only return 3 pages a minute, it will be a slow process.

One thing to note is that steps can timeout if they take an hour to calculate.

If this happens, try splitting up your Pull from an API step into multiple imports, and adjust the pagination settings. You can remerge the requests into a single table by using the Stack tables step.

#9

Got it, thanks!

Maybe something to consider is letting us change settings without having to recalculate. But I understand how complicated this might be.

Good advice with the timeouts. I was indeed getting into this issue.

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