How PageGate Communicates with the Web API Transcript for Video:
Welcome to the video tutorial on how PageGate sends to web APIs. In this tutorial, we'll be going over basic information on how PageGate can submit messages to web APIs.
To begin, a web API (application programming interface) is when a web server has a set of defined actions it will take as a result of a request from a web client. The client's request can be made via an HTTP GET or HTTP POST method. In most cases the web API will also define what data is returned to the client, as a response to the client's request. Many different types of companies offer web APIs that can do many different things.
As an example relevant to PageGate, there are text message delivery services that allow you to submit messages to their web API for delivery to cell phones. Of these companies, there are private sector providers like Infobip and Clickatel, who specialize in meeting high volume delivery needs.
There are also public sector providers like TigerText and The Fire Horn, who specialize in traffic for healthcare systems, like hospitals and doctor's offices, as well as traffic for emergency management agencies like police and fire departments.
Also, those are just a few examples of these types of companies, and do not represent a comprehensive or complete list of web API providers.
To communicate with a web API, you'll need to determine a few things.
First, you'll need the URL for the API. This should be provided by the company hosting that API.
A few examples of web API URLs can look like:
https://thfirehorn.com/api/software_relay/text_message/YourSiteKeyHere/
https://api.infobip.com/sms/1/text/single
https://api.data24-7.com/v/2.0
Second, you'll need the parameters and format of data to submit to the URL. This can vary wildly depending on what the web API requires. Some APIs will want you to submit everything in the URL statement, like this:
https://yourmessagehost.com/api/software_relay/text_message/Secure&API=sms&
FROM=YourSender&TO=YourRecipient&MESSAGE=YourMessage
This type of web API would require you to use PageGate's HTTPGET delivery protocol.
While other APIs will want you to connect to their URL and submit data formatted as XML, JSON, or even a web form and this type of web API would require you to use PageGate's HTTPPOST delivery protocol.
PageGate can be configured for either method but it's important to understand which method you need to implement.
Once you have that information, you're ready to implement your solution in PageGate. We'll cover details on how exactly to do that in our next tutorial: How to configure HTTP GET and HTTP POST carriers.
This concludes the tutorial on how PageGate sends to web APIs.
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