Consume a third party REST Api in salesforce

Question

I'm new to Apex REST/SOAP web services world and I'm struggling with a project of integration. What I have a API documentation from client which contains cURL examples, fields and sample JSON response. My questions,

1. How should I start and how can I call this API data inside Salesforce? I need ability to pull and push the data into Salesforce.

2. Are there any changes that need to do in external API system or can I call web services directly in Salesforce if I have login ID and Password of API?

3. In integration projects like this, what should be first step? What information will I need from client to start the integration?

I have read few articles online on REST but none of the article provide real time examples. Can you Apex Gurus please help? Any help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

If you want to make a call to an external API follow this steps buddy:

1) Include the new url as secured in your org. Setup -> Security Controls -> Remote Site Settings and add a new remote site. You must specify a name and a URL. eg. http://yourURL:8087.

Now, Salesforce recognize this site and trust on him.

2( Create your apex class using HttpRequest, this is just an example with a SOAP call:

   public static String SendRequest()
    {
    reqObj=new HttpRequest();
    resObj=new HttpResponse();
    httpRootObj = new Http();
    reqObj.setEndpoint(System.Label.YourEndpoint);
    reqObj.setMethod('GET');
    reqObj.setHeader('SOAPAction','');
    DOM.Document docObj= new DOM.Document();  // You must construct your xml structure according to the API your are invoking
    reqObj.setBody(docObj.toXmlString());
    reqObj.setTimeout(20000); 
    system.debug('XML MADE: '+docObj.toXmlString());
    try 
    {
            resObj= httpRootObj.send(reqObj);
            system.debug('RESPONSE FROM API: '+resObj.getBody());
            Integer iStatusCode=resObj.getStatusCode();
            if(iStatusCode==400 || iStatusCode==401 || iStatusCode==402 || iStatusCode==403 || iStatusCode==404)
            {
                //Send out an email as it failed                      
                return 'failure';
            }
            else
            {return resObj.getStatus();}

    }
    catch(Exception expObj) 
    {
        //your exception logic

        return 'failure';
    }
    return 'OK';
 }

3) At this stage your API must be working, whatever you want to do from here is up to you, remember that you must create your Apex Test class in order to deploy it in Prod.

I hope this small summary helps you.!!!

Welcome to Salesforce :)

Answer 2

Here is a simple example:

// req.setBody('This is a request');
// req.setEndpoint('https://WXYZ.com');         
// HttpResponse res = new HttpResponse(); 

HTH.