{ DreamFactory: 'Blog' }

Learn how you can modernize legacy databases and digitally transform your business through the power of APIs.

Continue reading “Ring-Fencing APIs: Modernizing Legacy Databases”

If Benjamin Franklin were alive today, some of his his famous words would have instead read, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes and Excel“. Microsoft’s ubiquitous spreadsheet application is as firmly embedded within the corporate world as TPS reports and the reek of a poorly chosen microwavable lunch (I swear it wasn’t fish). Given their prominence, it’s no surprise developers often spend a great deal of time wrangling spreadsheets, and among other questions wonder how to convert Excel to JSON format. Doing so is incredibly useful for a variety of reasons. Among other uses the JSON format would allow you to:

• Render the spreadsheet within a web page using a JavaScript tabular library such as Tabulator or DataTables.
• Periodically import the spreadsheet data into a database.
• Manipulate the spreadsheet data before importing it into any number of other systems or services.
• Parse the spreadsheet and deliver e-mail or text notifications based on values or thresholds.

The initial use case is particularly critical, because departments often use Excel as a group-based metric reporting tool. Frustration often sets in due to numerous duplicate and outdated versions eventually entering circulation. Of course there are more sophisticated solutions for workbook sharing, SharePoint being chief among them, however adoption of such technologies isn’t as widespread as Excel itself. So how can one go about sanely converting Excel workbooks to JSON?

Continue reading “Convert Excel to JSON Using DreamFactory”

Deciding between SnapLogic vs. DreamFactory for your iPaaS software? Compare SnapLogic alternatives like DreamFactory by pricing and features to find the best iPaaS software for you. Continue reading “SnapLogic vs. DreamFactory: An iPaaS Comparison”

DreamFactory includes a web-based administration console used for performing tasks such as managing APIs, administrators, and business logic. However many users prefer to instead automate administrative tasks through scripting. This is useful for several reasons. First, automation reduces the amount of work required to manage multiple DreamFactory environments. Second, it opens up the possibility of integrating DreamFactory features into third-party applications such as an API monetization SaaS. In this post we’ll demonstrate just how easy managing your DreamFactory instance using the system APIs can really be.

Continue reading “Managing Your DreamFactory Instance Using the System APIs”

Running a Scheduled Task for your API is a very common need for any business. Achieving such a feat is much easier with our tutorial for creating a CRON job for your API. Whether you are synchronizing data on a schedule or just simply do not want to call an endpoint manually anymore. So how is it done?

Continue reading “How to Schedule API Calls”

Synchronizing database data using an API is a topic that comes up repeatedly in conversations with DreamFactory users. The reasons for doing so are many, but perhaps the most commonplace is the need to fill in data gaps found in a new database. For instance, you might wish to periodically consult a customer database and synchronize relevant data with a marketing campaign database. So how might this be accomplished?

Continue reading “Synchronizing Database Data Using an API”

The DreamFactory development team leans heavily upon Git and GitHub for repository management. Whether it’s DreamFactory Genie, the DreamFactory website, the Getting Started with DreamFactory guide, or the platform itself, you can guarantee the code is managed within a repository. Apparently my own Git usage is such that it dominates my terminal command history, accounting for 32.689% of all commands executed (per the command zsh_stats )! Yet no matter how deep your Git expertise may be, eventually you’ll have to combine commands with shell syntax in order to achieve more complicated tasks. One such example is deleting all locally merged branches. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to do so by extending Git with a custom command.

Continue reading “Extending Git with a Custom Command”

Apigee is great at managing your existing APIs – but how can you bring new technologies into your Apigee suite that lack an appropriate API?

As it happens, DreamFactory is perfectly suited to creating a REST API fast for whatever datasource you need, and it can now be plugged straight into Apigee. In this blog post I will be breaking down how to go from a datasource with no API to having a fully Swagger documented and secure API managed in Apigee in no time, courtesy of DreamFactory’s Apigee API Generator.

Continue reading “Apigee API Generator: Easily Create APIs For Your Apigee Suite”