A Learning Record Store is capable of receiving xAPI data from any device, software or website. To allow you collecting more data from different software and websites, we enabled support for Zapier.
With Zapier you can connect GrassBlade Cloud LRS with more than 1500+ apps, websites, and online services.
In this article, we will be learning how to collect data based on actions happening on any other app on Zapier
Note: If you are looking to perform actions on other apps based on data received on the LRS, then please check this article.
For an illustrative example, we are connecting GrassBlade Cloud LRS with Twitter using Zapier and try to collect data of users who are using a particular hashtag (#Nature) in their tweets.
So basically, we’re going to create an xAPI statement for LRS, based on the action happening on Twitter.
For some more ideas, you could send data to the LRS on events like:
- Adding a new employee to your CRM
- Adding a new customer on SalesForce
- Generation of a support ticket on Zendesk
- Flipping of a switch on your desk
- anything else that you can imagine…
Let’s start.
Connecting Twitter for Triggering Action
Step 1:
Log in to your Zapier account, if you don’t have an account create a new one.
Step 2:
Click on “Make a Zap” button.
Step 3:
Search and select Twitter in the first step “1. When this happens …”.
Step 4:
From “Choose Trigger Event” dropdown, select Search Mention and click the Continue button.
Step 5:
Click “Sign in to Twitter“.
Step 6:
First, it will ask you to follow Zapier on Twitter, you can allow or deny. Then click, Yes, Continue button to move to the login screen. Enter your Twitter login details of Authorize app.
Step 7:
After a successful login, click “Continue” button.
Step 8:
Now enter keyword or hashtag of your choice, I’m entering “#Nature” as selected before. Then click Continue button.
Step 9:
To test your connection, click Find Mention button.
You have now successfully set up your Twitter account with Zapier. The above setup might be different for any other Zap you create with other apps.
Now, we have to connect this zap with the LRS in the next step.
Connecting with GrassBlade Cloud LRS
Step 10:
You are now in “Do This” section of Zapier where you decide what the Trigger setup earlier will do. Here, you can search for the target app. We will look for GrassBlade Cloud LRS (1.0.2) and select it.
If you do not see it, please click on “Accept Invite and Build a Zap” button on this invitation page.
Step 11:
From “Choose Action Event” dropdown select Create Statement and click Continue button.
Now, we are going to create a statement for the LRS using data from Twitter.
Step 12:
Click Sign in to GrassBlade Cloud LRS, to sign in.
Step 13:
Enter your Cloud LRS details and click “Yes, continue” button.
- API Endpoint
- API User
- API Password
Read: How to generate or find API Credentials?
Step 14:
After a successful login, click “Continue” button.
Step 15:
Now, we are in the Customize Statements part, we have to provide information to build an xAPI Statement. To understand more about xAPI Specification you can check from this link.
15 (i). Setup Actor Details
For the Actor, we need either the Email ID or Actor Account Homepage + Actor Account Name as a unique identifier of the user. We need to use one of the two options that are available.
There is no email on Twitter so we will use Actor Account Hompage & Actor Account Name combination instead.
a. Actor Name: It is the display name of the user, so select Full Name.
b. Actor Account Name: It can be a username or user id of the user. For Twitter, we have to select the username.
c. Actor Account Homepage: The canonical home page for the system the account is on. This is based on FOAF’s accountServiceHomePage. We have to use https://twitter.com/
15 (ii). Verb Details
a. Verb: This is like an action performed by the user, so here user tweeted on Twitter. The verb will be the verb id URL. We will search and use: http://id.tincanapi.com/verb/tweeted
b. Verb Display: Select or enter a display for the name of the verb. Normally the same as the label of the verb above. For us: tweeted
15 (iii) Activity Details
a. Activity Id: It is a unique URL of the action or we can say activity done by the user. For Twitter, we are selecting Tweet URL.
b. Activity Name: This is the activity name or text, you can manually type it or select the correct field. For Twitter, we will choose Tweeted Text of the tweet.
c. Activity Type: This denotes the type of the Activity and is in URI format. For Twitter, we have to select Tweet
Click the Continue button after selecting the appropriate information.
This is the prime information we need to collect from a tweet. There are few more section that can be used with other Zapier apps.
Step 16:
Let’s send test data to the LRS, click Send Test button.
Step 17:
The test was successful!!
Step 18:
Now, you need to Turn ON your Zap.
Zapier will now start sending statements in your LRS, let’s see how it looks like in the LRS.
There might be delays from 5 to 15 minutes depending on the app you are connecting to, and the type of account you have with Zapier.
JSON of the above statement
{
actor : {
name : Sandra Baxter,
account : {
name : Sandra_Bax,
homePage : https://t.co/bvTR3Ob8fR
}
},
verb : {
id : http://id.tincanapi.com/verb/tweeted,
display : {
en : Tweeted
}
},
result : {
duration :
},
object : {
definition : {
name : {
en : RT @LGSpace: We're losing our wildlife – including frogs, butterflies, bees, hedgehogs, moths, bats, insects, birds, and toads. But there a…
},
type : http://id.tincanapi.com/activitytype/tweet
},
id : https://twitter.com/147891322/status/1167344115400527873
},
id : 8ca2959a-09b8-4528-a538-1b87e69c205c,
stored : 2019-08-30T10:15:12.433Z,
timestamp : 2019-08-30T10:15:12.433Z,
authority : {
account : {
homePage : https://test.gblrs.com/xAPI/,
name : 29-a84cad798d5777b
},
objectType : Agent
}
}
You can similarly connect any other apps that are available on Zapier and send data to GrassBlade Cloud LRS. We hope you find this information useful.
If you need any help, please feel free to contact us.