DEV Community: Lizz Parody

Runnable Tutorial Straight From Your Blog Post

Lizz Parody — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 19:34:01 +0000

As a developer, you may often find yourself writing and reading technical blog posts, GitHub project READMEs, Stack Overflow answers and developer documentation. Have you ever wished you could click a link within any of them to launch a VS Code environment and automatically run the commands? This is a useful (and easy) way to verify that all the commands in the project are correct and the outputs/responses make sense. Also, if you have code examples this is a great way to help people quickly check them out and start experimenting.

With our latest release, you can do just that!

Let’s take for example the blog post “How to Process Large Files with Node.js” which is one of our most popular blog posts.

If you click the link “Launch the demo project locally” as shown below, you will be able to run the commands inside VS Code.

A lot of the examples you find for frameworks, blog posts and tutorials are not really usable because they require a lot of context and setup, for example; downloading packages and setting up the required environment. Runme can take away this pain.

With Runme you can click a button instantly clone into a repository for your users, allow them to install the dependencies, and run that specific example out of the box without much setup - making your content much more accessible to your users.

How does it work?

You start by crafting a link that launches VS Code with all the desired details to successfully clone the project into your local file system. Next, it'll use the Runme extension to open the specified markdown file and render the runnable notebook. This mechanism uses the built in VS Code deep linking functionality that knows how to intelligently launch VS Code into a specified state. Along the way, VS Code will ask your permission and trust anytime it's touching your filesystem, auth or anything else sensitive.

Let’s see the link:

vscode://stateful.runme?command=setup&repository=git@github.com:stateful/blog-examples.git&fileToOpen=node-streams/README.md

If you don’t want to use Github you can directly use a markdown link:

vscode://stateful.runme?command=setup&fileToOpen=your-markdown-file.md

By clicking the link, you will be able to see the README.md file with a ▶️ button next to the code.

And that’s it! Now you can make all your blog posts, GitHub project READMEs, Stack Overflow answers and developer documentation available with a click in VS Code.

Note: the repository will be in a temporary directory by default, but you can set it up in VS Code by going to: code > preferences > settings > Look for the Runme extension, and give it a specific path.

Before you go...

You can find us at @statefulhq on Twitter or on Discord. Also, if you're a VS Code user you should checkout Runme (transform READMEs into runnable notebooks), and Marquee (the open source homescreen that helps you stay organized). 👋

Import Contacts from HubSpot to Salesforce

Lizz Parody — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 16:40:32 +0000

In this blog post, you will learn how to easily import contacts from HubSpot to Salesforce with a few clicks using Fusebit.

Contact in HubSpot

Contact sync in Salesforce

Create HubSpot and Salesforce integration

Sign up or log in to Fusebit
Click on “New Integration”. Choose HubSpot Contacts sync in the middle column, and change the integration name and the HubSpot Connector name (optional). Click on Create.
In the right column “Connectors”, click on Add new, or Link existing and create a Salesforce connector. As a Salesforce and HubSpot user, you can create powerful integrations between the two systems with code.

Click on “Edit” in the middle column, and replace the code with:

const { Integration } = require('@fusebit-int/framework');

const integration = new Integration();
const router = integration.router;

const hubspotConnector = 'hubspot';
const sfdcConnector = 'salesforce';

router.post('/api/tenant/:tenantId/sync', integration.middleware.authorizeUser('install:get'), async (ctx) => {
  const hubspotClient = await integration.tenant.getSdkByTenant(ctx, hubspotConnector, ctx.params.tenantId);
  const sfdcClient = await integration.tenant.getSdkByTenant(ctx, sfdcConnector, ctx.params.tenantId);
  const contacts = await hubspotClient.crm.contacts.getAll();
  await Promise.all(contacts.map(async (contact) => {
    const res = await sfdcClient.sobject('Contact').create({LastName: contact.properties.lastname, Email: contact.properties.email, FirstName: contact.properties.firstname})
  }))
  ctx.body = `Successfully performed initial import from hubSpot to SFDC.`;
});

integration.event.on('/:componentName/webhook/:eventtype', async (ctx) => {
    const hubspotClient = await integration.service.getSdk(ctx, hubspotConnector, ctx.req.body.installIds[0])
    const sfdcClient = await integration.service.getSdk(ctx, sfdcConnector, ctx.req.body.installIds[0]);
    const contact = await hubspotClient.crm.contacts.basicApi.getById(ctx.req.body.data.objectId);
    await sfdcClient.sobject('Contact').create({LastName: contact.properties.lastname, Email: contact.properties.email, FirstName: contact.properties.firstname})
});

module.exports = integration;

Keep in mind to change the constants hubspotConnectorand sfdcConnector with your own connector name.

Now that you have both connectors and the integration logic let’s configure HubSpot and Salesforce.

To Configure HubSpot Developers and Connect to Salesforce, click here

One Last Thing…

If you have any questions, you can contact us. Keep in mind that you can create any HubSpot Salesforce integration using Fusebit, filter contact activity, get contact data, advanced setup and sync data between the two platforms.

If you want to use other platforms, create powerful bi-directional sync and improve your customer experience, for example sending new Salesforce leads to your marketing team in slack, check out Fusebit, and follow us on Twitter!

Send HubSpot Companies to Slack!

Lizz Parody — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 19:40:16 +0000

There are hundreds of data integrations you can do between HubSpot and Slack. One of them is to send the number of HubSpot companies to a Slack channel.

With just a few steps and lines of code, you can easily create it!

Click here to install the integration
Create an account or login to Fusebit
You will be redirected to the Fusebit web editor with already most of the code you need.
Now, let’s fetch HubSpot companies, we can do this with one line of code:
const companies = await hubspotGetCompanies(ctx);
in line 16 (inside integration.router.post)
Send the new message to Slack with
await slackSendMessage(ctx, 'You have ${companies.length} companies in HubSpot')
in line 19 (or any other message of your preference).
In addition to sending the message directly within Slack you can also send it in the response body. Change what’s inside of the ctx.body to companies: companies.length and that’s it!

Check out the full blog post here

Customize Linear’s Slack Notifications

Lizz Parody — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 16:34:29 +0000

As a software developer, you can build flexible and customizable integrations between Linear and Slack using Fusebit. These integrations can be as complex as summarizing the status and updates of all the Linear issues in your Slack workspace or as simple as sending a congratulations message in Slack when you complete a new issue in Linear.

For example, receiving the following Slack message:

You or your engineering team can run this integration by clicking here

To learn more, check out the full blog post

Run the Integration

Finally, when you or somebody on your team completes a Linear issue, you will see a congratulations message on a Slack channel! You can go beyond and customize the Linear-Slack integration as you want, creating common Slack alerts, automated tasks, or the workflow of your preference.

Looking for more integrations?

If you are a developer looking to create flexible and powerful integrations using other SaaS platforms or tools, check out Fusebit and follow us on Twitter!

A Better Slack Bot for HubSpot

Lizz Parody — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 23:44:30 +0000

Integrating Slack and HubSpot can be difficult for developers.

HubSpot has an built-in bot for Slack But sometimes the built-in bot capabilities aren’t sufficient, or you want to create a HubSpot Slack bot for your specific task or workflow

In this blog post, you will learn how to code a Slack bot that responds to a specific command and returns the information you need from HubSpot, giving you full control of what data is fetched and how it is displayed.

What could you do with this integration?

Let’s say that you would like to get information about your users by running just one command in Slack. For example, if you run “lookup user@email.com” on Slack and receive relevant information about that user from HubSpot.

Let’s see the integration in action!

One item to note about the “lookup” keyword is that it can be placed anywhere on a slack message. If you are having a conversation with a team member, you can say for example “Hey @user2 can you please reach out to customer Acme, here's the contact info lookup acme@email.com”, the team member will receive the information needed from that user.

Try it out now!

Click here to install the bot
You will need to authorize access to your HubSpot instance and Slack workspace
Add the bot to a Slack channel, by clicking the drop-down next to the channel name, clicking Integrations, and then selecting Add an App and then finding “HubSpot Bot”
Type the “lookup” command followed by the email address of a HubSpot contact, for example “lookup joe@example.com”.

Once you have the example running, you may wish to customize it to your needs, including modifying HubSpot search or how the data is displayed. Read on to learn how.

To create your own integration, you can read this article.

7 Best Integration Platforms in 2021

Lizz Parody — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 16:14:12 +0000

An average mid-size company uses around 140 unique apps. A small business uses around 100, and a large enterprise uses around 290 SaaS products across their business. Just think about it, how many apps do you use per day? Well, companies use a lot more to keep their business running.

The great majority of those apps don't make sense in isolation. Just like you prefer Google Docs notifications delivered to you right inside Slack, it's better for companies of all sizes to have their apps integrated or 'talking to each other.' The integration of apps enables the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts, and every app is carefully considered as part of a bigger business strategy.

Even though the number of unique apps used by companies is quite large, at the same time, companies are churning through more than 30% of their apps every year. So if you have a SaaS product, you should probably think about integrating it with existing apps because it's easier for companies to stop using your product if it's not a fundamental part of their business strategy and if they are not integrated with other apps.

Integration platforms or iPaaS, help you solve the problem of integrating apps so you can maintain your focus on your SaaS company. Some of them are great if you want to connect two apps, others if you want a customizable integration and multiple tenants, and others for people that prefer no-code integration. There are different integration solutions for different needs, and this blog post will explore 7 different integration platforms following 8 criteria:

Code / no-code integration
Flexibility and customization of the integration
Cloud (private or public) / on-premise integration
User profile
Customer support, documentation, and training
SaaS Embedding
Pricing
Number of applications supported

The integration platforms are not ranked in a specific order.

Dell Boomi

No-code integration

Dell Boomi is a cloud-native data integration platform that streamlines integration in complex hybrid cloud ecosystems and removes silos in organizations. The user-friendly interface is backed by intelligent recommendations to provide an end-to-end data integration experience.

Dell Boomi is developer-friendly and offers a graphical user interface. No-code and low-code integration is available.

Flexibility and customization of the integration
Is not as flexible a code-first solution, but it provides a comprehensive library of connectors, coupled with support for various integration patterns that enable you to build many integrations.

Cloud / on-premise integration

You can integrate any combination of On-Premises, Cloud, and SaaS applications or data sources.

SaaS Embedding

Boomi offers embedded solution, for software companies that are looking to integrate with their customers' applications.

They also have standalone solutions.

Pricing

There are 5 tiers:

Base: including standard features and support
Professional: Base + Allows multiple environments (prod/test) and advanced workflows
Pro Plus: Professional + includes services enablement
Enterprise: Pro Plus + atom worker, parallel processing, and advanced security
Enterprise Plus: Enterprise + message queuing, 15 standard connectors, and 2 enterprise connectors.

User profile

Boomi is mainly for non-technical people, but their low-code solution can be used by technical people as well.

Customer support, documentation, and training

You can get in touch with the contact form, the Boomi community and help and documentation page.

Number of applications supported

Dell Boomi comes with 1,500 built-in endpoint connections to automate many common integrations and reduce your time on creating customized connections. Other features included in this platform include API management, data discovery, and data quality governance.

Zapier

Zapier allows you to connect your apps and easily automate workflows. Anyone can build workflows with a few clicks, and it lets you automatically move info between your web apps.

No-code integration

You don't have to write code to integrate applications. You can solve problems fast with templates. You can add multiple steps and workflow logic through their drag and drop interface.

Flexibility and customization of the integration

You can tweak a template (called a zap) or start from scratch. Tailor automated solutions to your team's needs by adding multiple steps and workflow logic. Zapier falls short when it comes to flexibility and customization since you can only work with what they already have. No-code solutions are generally more rigid than code solutions.

Cloud / on-premise integration

Zapier works exclusively in the cloud.

User profile

Zapier is built for non-technical users, including marketers and managers.

Customer support, documentation, and training

You can receive support through the help center, hiring an expert or in their community. You can also read their docs for more information.

SaaS Embedding

You can embed links to zaps in your product, helping your customers discover available integrations within your product, however customers are always redirected to Zapier to use and modify them.

Pricing

There are 3 tiers:

Free: with 5 Zaps and 100 tasks/mo
Starter: 29.99 USD/mo or 19.99 billed annually for 20 Zaps and 750 Tasks
Professional: 49 USD/mo, unlimited zaps, and 2K task/mo

Number of applications supported

3000, including Google Sheets, Slack, Mailchimp, Trello, Gmail, and others.

MuleSoft

MuleSoft is a developer-friendly platform to empower IT and business teams to create seamless digital experiences, products, and services with their platform for integration, APIs, and automation.

No-code integration

Mulesoft offers a code-based and no-code solution for its customers.

Flexibility and customization of the integration

MuleSoft could be very flexible, but to get the maximum advantage of the platform, you would probably have to hire a skilled MuleSoft engineer or consultant since the platform has a fairly high barrier to entry and requires training, certification, and substantial experience to use.

Also, MuleSoft has a long implementation time, and it can take between one and six months of preparation before fully implementing the MuleSoft integration strategy.

Cloud / on-premise integration

You can run MuleSoft on-premise and on the cloud.

User profile

MuleSoft is designed primarily for use by developers and IT specialists.

Customer support, documentation, and training

You can contact sales, help center and Newsroom here, and also you can read the documentation for more information.

SaaS Embedding

Mule runtime can be used to deploy applications in a standalone way, however this leaves a lot of work to the developer in terms of determining how to surface these integrations to end-users.

Pricing

MuleSoft is one of the most expensive solutions on the market today. In fact, many enterprises are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, and some are even spending millions. According to the price-tracking website ITQlik, MuleSoft pricing starts at approximately $80,000 a year. However, the price that most of their enterprise customers pay is closer to $250,000 a year.

Number of applications supported

+500 connectors.

Tray.io

With Tray.io you can quickly integrate your software applications using powerful automated workflows. Easily build and streamline processes using their visual workflow editor.

Low code and no-code integration

Tray.io offers low-code and no-code solutions. You can create integrations with their drag-and-drop interface.

Flexibility and customization of the integration

Tray.io is flexible and allows you to grab the most data from any service with ease. You can have full API access - including custom fields and connect to any SaaS app with their universal connector.

Their drag-and-drop interface is user-friendly, but it doesn't allow the level of flexibility that a code-first solution can provide. Adding a new first-class connector needs to be done by the Tray.io team and can frequently take a long time if the connector is not already on Tray’s roadmap.

They have universal connectors like HTTP client connector, GraphQL connector, connectors for common databases, JDBC connector, CSV Editor, S/FTP, and universal triggers like webhooks, email, form.

Cloud / on-premise integration

Works on the cloud, it doesn't run on-premise but it has a mechanism to connect to on-premise systems for a custom enterprise quote.

User profile

Since it is low-code and no-code, Tray.io can be used by technical and non-technical customers.

Customer support, documentation, and training

You can get in contact with them here, use the chat and to learn more about the platform you can read the developer docs.

SaaS Embedding

You can get Tray.io Embedded and deliver the integrations that your customers are asking for, without needing engineering to maintain them.

Pricing

You can choose between 4 tiers:

Standard: $695/mo
Standard Plus: $1,450/mo
Professional: $2,450/mo
Enterprise: Custom Pricing

Number of applications supported

+100 connectors, including Salesforce, NetSuite, Snowflake, Slack, Shopify, Zoom, and others.

Celigo

Code / no-code integration

Celigo is a platform designed to integrate data into cloud applications and automate key parts of this process. This platform comes with a user-friendly guided interface and data flow templates for no-code integration. Non-technical users will find it easy to take a template and build on it with business logic. Technical users have the option of using JavaScript scripts, webhook, HTTP, REST API, FTP, hooks, wrappers, API tokens, and debuggers to develop automation flows that are customized to your organization.

Celigo has an intuitive design and hundreds of pre-built connectors. It makes it possible for technical and non-technical users to build and maintain automation and integrations themselves. You can use templates or create your application from scratch.

Flexibility and customization of the integration

Since it provides code and no-code solutions, Celigo gives a lot of flexibility to their customers and the possibility of customization of their integration.

Cloud / on-premise integration

You can use Celigo on both on-premise and on the cloud. An on-premise agent is a Windows software program that runs on your server, typically behind the firewall and within the same network as the systems you want to connect to. It establishes a secure tunnel to connect to integrator.io. You can connect to on-premise apps, but Celigo itself doesn’t run on premise.

User profile

Technical and non-technical users.

Customer support, documentation, and training

You can find here the developer docs, get in contact with them through this form, or use the chat in their webpage.

SaaS Embedding

You can have embedded integrations with Celigo, as well as standalone integrations.

Pricing

You can choose between 4 tiers:

Standard: $7,200/yr with 3 endpoint apps and 16 flows
Professional: $18,000/yr with 5 endpoint apps and 100 flows
Premium: $36,000/yr with 10 endpoint apps and unlimited flows
Enterprise: $72,000/yr with 20 endpoint apps and unlimited flows

Number of applications supported

+100

Jitterbit

Jitterbit is an API integration platform designed to streamline the connection of cloud, on-premise, and SaaS applications. It also offers a way to add Artificial Intelligence technology into your applications and combine them in innovative ways to create new solutions. AI options include real-time language translation, a recommendation engine, and speech recognition.

No-code integration

You can quickly create new APIs or connect with external ones through an extensive library of pre-built templates and workflows. If the pre-built templates don't cover your needs, you can use a point-and-click graphical interface to create your own integrations and templates. Jitterbit only offers no-code integration.

Flexibility and customization of the integration

Jitterbit offers a degree of flexibility and customization through its point-and-click graphical interface, but it doesn't provide the flexibility a code platform can offer.

Cloud / on-premise integration

Jitterbit supports on-premise, cloud, and hybrid cloud deployment and both real-time and batch processing operations.

User profile

Jitterbit was built for non-technical people.

Support, documentation, and training

Jitterbit provides support via an online forum-based community and via online form submission. Documentation is comprehensive. Digital training materials are available.

SaaS Embedding

Jitterbit only offers standalone applications.

Pricing

You can choose between three tiers, the prices are not transparent, you will have to contact them to get more information.

Standard: 2-3 connections
Professional: 5 connections
Enterprise: 8 or more connections

Number of applications supported

+100

Fusebit

Fusebit is a powerful integration platform that allows you to build integrations for your SaaS applications in minutes. It’s code-first and you can create connectors, code your logic, deploy your integration, and reduce integration engineering cost by 7x. Fusebit takes away the pain of developing against many disparate APIs while maintaining the flexibility and familiarity of a code-first platform.

Code-first solution

Using a no-code solution to create an integration sounds good on the surface, but usually, those integrations don't do exactly what your customers want, due to limitations in the visual authoring model. The Fusebit platform allows you to create flexible integrations that your customers will love, with full support for Node.js and the npm package ecosystem

Fusebit was built for developers by developers to let you focus your time on the core integration logic while Fusebit takes the boilerplate off your plate. Our robust multi-tenant runtime keeps your customer data secure, while embeddable white-label configuration and lifecycle management components make you substantially more productive.

Flexibility and customization of the integration

Because of its code-first solution, Fusebit is highly flexible and allows you to create powerful integrations that fulfill all your customer's requirements. Working with other platforms, you might encounter a functionality cliff you can’t get past, since there are specific integrations that can only be achieved through code. Fusebit is flexible enough that you will never find yourself in that situation.

Cloud / on-premise integration

Fusebit works on the cloud and it can be deployed to a customer's AWS cloud instance if required (known as private cloud), which gives businesses many of the benefits of a public cloud - including self-service, scalability, and elasticity - with the additional data privacy and compliance controls enabled by dedicated resources.

User profile

Fusebit was built for developers, but uses accessible JavaScript to make it possible for anybody technical to use it, regardless of role

Customer support, documentation, and training

You can find support on the chat in the webpage, in the developer documentation, in slack, discord and contact@fusebit.io email.

SaaS Embedding

Fusebit is the only iPaaS that's purely for embedded use cases.

Pricing

There are 3 tiers:

Developer: Free forever and 10 connectors
Team: $199/mo and 30 connectors
Business: Custom pricing

Number of applications supported

Fusebit supports Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, GitHub, Linear, Jira, Confluence, PagerDuty among others, and tens of new connectors are added monthly. Fusebit is an open model, meaning that you can create and add your own connector in this repository.

Integrations Platforms Chart

Finally, you can check the chart below where you can find where the platforms are located taking into account: developer-friendly, no-code solution, embedded and standalone:

What do you think?

What is your favorite integration platform? Tell us what you think about the platforms here or let us know if we are missing one.

Koa in the Cloud

Lizz Parody — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 15:07:27 +0000

Express or Koa?

Most developers using Node.js are using frameworks to improve productivity, scalability, and speed of application development, facilitate quick prototyping, and automate processes with the help of libraries, templates, and reusable components.

Two of the most popular frameworks are Express and Koa.

Express is a widely used and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications. It is quick and easy to create a robust API with many HTTP utility methods and middleware available.

Koa is a new web framework designed by the team behind Express, which aims to be a smaller, more expressive, and a more robust foundation for web applications and APIs. By leveraging async functions, Koa allows you to ditch callbacks and significantly improve the experience of error handling. Koa does not bundle any middleware within its core, and it provides an elegant suite of methods that make writing servers fast and enjoyable for developers.

Even though Express has been called the de facto standard server framework for Node.js and it's the most popular one with 18 million weekly downloads, Koa is rapidly growing in popularity with 1.2 million weekly downloads because it's lightweight, has great user experience and superior performance (37K req/sec vs. 10K req/sec of Express).

Why Use Serverless?

Serverless is a cloud execution model that enables a more straightforward, cost-effective way to build and operate cloud-native applications. The application owner does not purchase, rent, manage, or provision the servers in this cloud architecture. Instead, the cloud provider manages the infrastructure side of things for the applications.

Despite the name, serverless apps do not run without servers 😂. It means that businesses don't need to manage the server-side of the equation and operational concerns, and instead focus on development.

The most significant advantage of this architecture is that the provisioning of servers is done dynamically to meet the real-time computing demand. That is, you pay only for what you use. The same could be said about running monolithic applications on VMs behind an Auto Scaling Group, which was available for years before serverless. The key change in serverless is also the change in the scope of the unit of deployment, from a monolithic app to a single function.

Click here to learn how to run Express.js and Koa.js on AWS Lambda.

Bots, Hooks, and Extensions

Lizz Parody — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 14:57:55 +0000

When you are building a modern application, it is only a matter of time before your customers ask for integrations with other systems. Listen to them, and your acquisition and retention will benefit. This post provides a way to frame this space and identifies the set of technical challenges you will need to think about and solve to add a robust integration story to your app.

Benefits of integrations in your app

Over 90% of SaaS product leaders say that having integration features embedded in their application increases acquisition and retention.

We live in a world where an average mid-size company uses close to 140 SaaS products. Very few of them make sense in isolation, they all support parts of a bigger business process, which is only possible if they are integrated. The newsletter signups from Pipedrive must flow as leads to Salesforce. Weekly sales numbers from Salesforce must be sent to Slack as a report, etc.

Customers of SaaS products are increasingly comparing alternative solutions using integration capabilities as the key differentiator. In a crowded space, the integration features of your app can make a difference between closing or losing a deal. Integrations in your app are no longer a checkbox on your customer’s checklist. Showing a logo is not sufficient. Your integration story must have a quality and depth to it to win.

Integrations are also key to retaining your customers longer. An average mid-size company changes 39% of their SaaS application stack every year. It is much easier for your customer to replace a disconnected or poorly connected application than to remove an application that has its integration tentacles deeply embedded in several other systems in the customer’s ecosystem.

Making the right technical choices when deciding on the scope and approach to the integration story in your app is key. The rest of this post frames the space and provides an overview of the technical challenges you will need to address along the way.

Bots, hooks, extensions - choosing the right integration pattern

Integration capabilities come with different names, but they really revolve around a handful of integration patterns. One useful way of categorizing them is to look at the trigger of the integration behavior. Looking from the perspective of your app, there are outgoing, incoming, or scheduled integrations, or a combination thereof. We will look into each of these in turn.