I want to insert a link in the image upload page in the D2L LMS which allows the user to upload an image from our Gravatar service. I understand I can do it through the valence content API but just as we can put in links in the insert stuff sidebar, can we also wrap an LTI link into a link on the image upload page?
Thanks!
The Remote Plugin Service builds on LTI to let you integrate with D2L's LMS in more "native user interaction" kinds of ways. The "Insert Stuff" framework is one of these, as you've recognized. While D2L does intend to offer more Remote Plugin configuration types in the future, currently there is no configuration type for integration with the image upload interaction point. This is, however, a good idea; I'd encourage you to suggest it on the Product Ideas Exchange in the D2L Community site, or make a request for this enhancement through your account or partner manager at D2L.
There is sample code for creating a remote plugin that allows you to insert images using the Insert Stuff Framework, which was introduced in the following blog post: http://devs.valence.desire2learn.com/2013/11/11/making-development-easier-with-the-remote-plugins-test-service/. This sample uses LTI and the Valence Learning Framework APIs to insert images.
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So I have an application that I want to be able to read from BigQuery and perform queries, be able to read from GSheets to form these queries and upload this data into a directory in Google Drive.
I understand how to individually do these things, but for the sake of consolidating my system, I would like to use one set of credentials for everything. Is this a good way to go about building my system? I would like to follow the "least access possible" guideline to limit visibility to the database.
Is the best way to go about this creating multiple credentials? Should I use OAuth Credentials and include relevant scopes? Or can I create one set of credentials for all of this?
I'm using python for the backend, don't think that's relevant to the question though.
The proper way to handle this is to create the project using the Google API Console and authorize all the APIs needed for this project.
Afterwards, you will have to select the APIs needed by following the steps from this article here.
In order to retrieve the credentials for the project, you will have to select the project you created and based on the type of application you plan on developing, you will have to select the type of credentials needed.
Selecting APIs & Service
Selecting Credentials
Then based on your choice, you will end up retrieving the credentials and use them in your application.
Reference
Authorize Requests.
Our users authenticate to Acumatica using OAuth2-based SSO with Google as the identity provider. They do not have passwords to access the system (we generate very long, strong passwords which are discarded as soon as SSO is set up).
I don't want to go into all the reasons why SSO is important to us. It's critical, and I'll leave it at that. SSO was a policy and business requirement for us to select Acumatica.
The Report Designer doesn't seem to support OAuth2.
Is there a way we can give users the ability to download the RPX files via the browser, edit them outside the browser, and then upload the changes via the browser, using only SSO credentials?
Also, where can I get the source code to Report Designer? I'd love to see if I can add OAuth2 support myself.
There are 2 types of report in Acumatica:
Standard Reports
Analytical Reports
The links above describe how you can customize these reports using Acumatica Cloud ERP.
You can notice that standard reports have the following limited customization possibility using Cloud ERP:
You can adjust the report settings to meet your specific informational
needs. For example, you can specify sorting and filtering options and
select the data by using report-specific settings—such as financial
period, ledger, and account. You can configure additional processing
settings for each report.
Analytical reports have more customization possibilities through Cloud ERP:
The Analytical Report Manager is a web-based tool for creating and
modifying analytical reports. Users can design and run custom
analytical reports using advanced data selection criteria, data
calculation rules, and customizable report layout design features. By
using the Analytical Report Manager, you can: Create the layout and
structure of reports based on your business requirements. Define data
selection criteria for the report with a high level of granularity.
For example, data sources can include a range of accounts,
subaccounts, and financial periods. Use advanced formulas to calculate
values based on the information extracted from the data source. Create
consolidated reports based on the data from multiple data sources or
other analytical reports. Localize data used by a report if
multilingual support of user input is enabled.
Acumatica marketing material shouldn't refer to the standard report editor (Windows Form Desktop Application) as part of the Cloud ERP product. The reason for this is quite simple, a Windows Desktop application is not a cloud product, it can't be accessed with a browser and is not supported on unix/apple OS.
Analytical reports designer support SSO OAuth since the designer is running on the Cloud ERP product.
Standard reports designer doesn't support OAuth. You could fill a feature request for it though. Our marketing material should not refer to standard report customization as part of the Cloud ERP product because the designer requirements are different.
We strive to make every feature available on Cloud ERP platform. At the moment these are the features not available on Cloud ERP to my knowledge:
Standard Report Editor
DeviceHub, this is a Windows program that acts like a device
spooler so you can access windows desktop hardware like printer
and scales from the Cloud ERP.
Login page customization, this can't be achieved through
Customization Project Editor, you have to change files manually on
the server.
From now on, I'll focus on the Standard Report Designer, the Windows Desktop Application.
The designer uses the Web Service API to communicate with Acumatica Database.
Besides loading and saving RPX files the report designer also uses the Web Service API for features in 'File->Build Schema' dialog like 'Load Schema'. If your user are not using the 'Build Schema' features then having only the RPX file locally should be enough to allow them to modify the report using the designer.
Code for loading and saving RPX files is located in PX.Reports.Design.ReportUtils class which is part of PX.Reports.Design.dll assembly. It's using the SOAP API which to my knowledge is not the preferred API to use OAuth, the REST Contract API is recommended for OAuth enabled Web Services. Refactoring the PX.Reports.Design.dll assembly to use REST Contract API instead of SOAP API isn't trivial.
That said I believe it's possible to load and save RPX files using the Rest API and you could write a wrapper for the report designer to handle that task as long as you forgo 'Build Schema' feature. I'll touch on that at the end of my answer.
You can find the documentation for using OAuth with Rest API here
There are two ways you can use Acumatica Web Service, attended or unattended.
Attended use requires a user to enter his credentials in some form of UI before using the web service. The report designer uses this form of authentication.
The alternative for unattended use is to configure and save the authentication credentials before using the web service. That way an automated program can use web service API without requiring a user sitting in front of the computer.
Unattended use typically doesn't involve OAuth because you can't have a user dedicated to the task of authenticating. For example, if you integrate Acumatica with an ecommerce provider, requiring him to use OAuth authorization to push the orders to Acumatica is problematic because that process usually doesn't involve a UI where a user sitting at the computer provide authorization.
You could technically create a OAuth access token that never (rarely) expires for this task but it circumvents the purpose of OAuth which is having temporary access tokens to mitigate man in the middle attacks. Certifications that mandates use of OAuth typically forbid use of tokens that never expire. That's why requesting OAuth for automated process can raise eyebrows and lead programmers to question your security policies.
Now let's get to possible solutions for your problem. You'll have to assess whether your security policies allows use of unattended web service without OAuth authorization. If that's the case then your job will be much easier. If not then you'll likely run into similar problems later on if dealing with third party web service integration for Acumatica is required.
In order to write a wrapper over the report designer you'll have to write a windows desktop application and have the '.RPS' file type associated with your wrapper instead of being associated with Acumatica report designer.
When a user clicks the EDIT REPORT button on the website, a '.RPS' text file is generated in memory on the server and the user browser is redirected to that file in order to download it locally. When the user clicks on the RPS file, windows launches the associated program (Acumatica report designer) and passes the RPS file path by command line parameter. The report designer then presents the authorization dialog where user can enter his credentials and the report RPX file is downloaded by the Web Service API.
Example of the content of an RPS file:
ServiceUrl|http://localhost/AcumaticaInstance/
ReportName|gl633000.rpx
User|admin
The idea is to have your wrapper parse this RPS file, download the associated RPX file using the Web Service API that comply with your security policy and then launch Acumatica report designer for this RPX file using command line parameter:
"c:\...\ReportDesigner.exe" "c:\...'gl633000.rpx"
When you launch the report designer you want to halt your main thread until the user closes the report designer. Framework methods that do this are typically named 'wait for exit'. Before closing the report designer the user would save the RPX file. After the designer is closed your main thread will resume and you can then re-upload that RPX file to Acumatica database using Web Service API.
The easy way would be to create a report designer user to use Web Service API in unattended mode. You could store those credentials locally (in encrypted form) wherever you see fit and never expose them in UI. When making Web Service call you decrypt those credentials on the fly. In such a scenario the asset to protect is the decryption key.
If use of attended web service is required for OAuth support you will need to implement a UI to get those credentials. If you have to use Google login page for entering the credentials you would have to include an embedded browser in your wrapper for that purpose.
As a remainder, note that this solution will enable you to modify the report definition in the RPX file but will not enable you to use report designer features that require web service API like 'Build Schema'.
All box.com's api's read to require OAuth 2.0 using only Authorization Token grant types. I have a back end system that needs to upload a file to a box.com system. However, I do not understand how a back end system is suppose to integrate, when the authorization flow requires user "approval" to get a token.
Anyone ever done this? I am attempting to integrate a java mule app. I attempted to use the components, but they plain do not work at all, they break the entire anypoint studio. Now I am trying to utilize the http component to make the call but I am losing my patience with it.
please help, I am pretty much ready to drop kick this laptop and live in the woods.
Integration with public online API requires a little study, a little coding, and a little testing. I'm not saying it's easy. Take a look here at a Mule component I've recently created that communicates with Toggl, an online timekeeping service.
https://github.com/ciwise/toggl-api-connector
Your question requires a lot of discussion but it's best answered with example. If Box does not provide a Mule component, you can create one yourself.
The HTTP connector is not going to authenticate or perform any operations at Box for you. The HTTP connector provides the HTTP endpoint (URL entry and browser return). To authenticate your application with Box and call API operations, you'll need to do some work.
This is the high-level recipe for my solution with Toggl service (example)
Update your Anypoint Studio with Mule Connector DevKit software
Create an Anypoint Connector project in Anypoint Studio (Eclipse)
My connector provides multiple methods to process and these are used with different instances of the component (connector) in my use flow.
My TogglDataAPIHandler.java makes various checks to see if the application (Mule) is authenticated before making calls to the Application Programming Interface (API). The API is provided by Box so that developers (people writing code) can communicate with the service outside of the web browser. There's no simple answer here. You will have to do some coding. My component/connector is only an example of one way to do this (communicate programmatically with the API).
Build and install the connector(component) locally so that we can see it in the Mule Design Palette.
Drag as many of our new component (Anypoint connector) as needed into our flow canvas.
Test the flow.
I hope that helps. Take a look at my Github repo and Mule Connector. There's a wealth of information in anyone's code. But, integration with an API requires code. You can also search the Exchange for a Box connector. If you find one, then your life is simpler. You still need to read this thoroughly:
https://docs.box.com/docs
I am trying to add modules using Desire2Learn's valence API, which also involves setting up a release condition. I am specifically looking for adding this condition Classlist->Group Enrollment on the module. Could not find an API that would add a release condition on a module.
http://docs.valence.desire2learn.com/res/content.html
Has anyone come across with this? What API shall be used for adding a release condition via valence web services?
Unfortunately, the Valence Learning Framework APIs do not expose the ability to view or edit release conditions. So while you can create the content modules via Valence, you will have to use the Web UI to manage release conditions.
This sounds like a good candidate for a feature request. Clients of D2L can search and post feature requests to the Product Ideas Exchange. You're welcome to share the link to the PIE post via the forums to promote it to fellow developers in the Developer Community of Practice: https://community.brightspace.com/devcop.
I'm trying to create a redistributable web application that will integrate with Google Analytics through the Google Reporting API. Customer will install the application on their server.
I'm following this tutorial (I'm using PHP, but I believe this is not of importance for my question)
https://developers.google.com/analytics/resources/tutorials/hello-analytics-api
This works fine. No issues there.
However I can't figure out one missing element:
The tutorial starts with sending me to the Google APIs console where I have to create and configure a new API project and create and configure a client ID.
That's a lot of work that requires fairly technical knowledge (redirect url, selecting correct API, error-prone copy-and-pasting, etc.)
So my questions:
Is there an API so I can programmatically set this up for my user?
If that's not possible, is there a more user-friendly way to obtain Analytics reporting that is future-proof? (I noticed they are currently deprecating a few older APIs)
Unfortunately that's AFAIK not possible.
You could go one of the following ways:
Move client_id and client_secret to some configuration file and help your customer with deployment.
Show a one-time setup wizard for your app and guide your customer step-by-step. There you can at least provide him with the right callback URLs.
Regard your application as "installed application" and instrument curl or something similar for sending the requests.