Paving the Way for Citizen Development with New Webhooks

With the rise of citizen development, more and more teams are empowered to create applications that digitize some part of their day-to-day activities. Citizen development is a huge focus for the Box Platform team – this is why we were one of the first partners to go live with Zapier’s new workflow offering, announced earlier this year. It’s also why we’ve had a longstanding relationship with ManyWho, why we partnered with Nokavision to build a Box Platform Module for Mendix, why Built.io has had Box implemented into its integration library since it launched, and most recently why you saw us showcase an on-boarding process for millennial workers with Twilio and SurveyMonkey, powered by Workato.

Built on Box’s UI components and SDKs, these citizen development platforms enable easy creation of high-impact custom apps. But when we looked at the kinds of applications our customers were building, we realized that we could open up significant new integration opportunities and make development easier and more efficient by revamping our webhooks. Today, we’re delighted to announce that we’ve done just that. The latest version of Box webhooks is available today in public beta and offers the following benefits:

1. More Granular: Webhooks can be set on specific file and folder activity
2. API-managed: Developers can set webhooks on the fly via the API; enables granularity of the callback URLs
3. More secure: Adding hashed signature to notifications so apps can verify the notifications are the ones they created within Box
4. More reliable: Infrastructure investments mean higher success in sending notification and we have added retries to improve delivery rate
5. More detailed: Payload now includes actor, trigger and the full V2 resource description

Our updated webhooks are already unlocking new use cases and greater proliferation of citizen development, with leading partners including Built.io, ManyWho, Workato, Stamplay, and Zapier building on the new functionality.

• Built.io: Built.io Flow unifies disparate IT systems and connects anything with a digital heartbeat and an API to make organizations more efficient and to enable groundbreaking new experiences. Companies can automate workflows that span the physical and digital world, ranging from Box, HelloSign and Cisco all the way to Tesla. That way, when an important document in Box is awaiting a user's signature, that user can be notified and provide authorization via a voice command while driving in their car.
• ManyWho: ManyWho is a workflow platform that enables business users to design and automate complex business processes using a simple point-and-click editor. ManyWho delivers enterprise class ECM applications that orchestrate multiple solutions such as Box, Salesforce and Twilio without writing any code. For example, a financial services company may use ManyWho to build a client onboarding app where documents are stored in Box and customer data is stored in Salesforce. ManyWho can make use of the full range of the Box platform including: viewer, metadata, identity and tasks.
• Stamplay: Stamplay is the platform for the API-driven enterprises. It has taken the entire messy and complex world of API integration and turned it into a visual development experience. For example a company may use Stamplay to build a new hire request app, or a complain management app where documents are stored in Box, notification are sent via SMS and customer data is saved in a CRM of choice like Salesforce or Dynamics so users can create APIs or new services by combining existing ones, often without much code.
• Workato: Workato is an automation and integration platform that provides the ability to integrate all your cloud and on-premise applications and automate your workflows with no coding. Workato customers use Box in their business process automation to build workflows around the documents including moving documents between applications and enrich the document with relevant meta data stored in CRM, marketing, ERP, support, and accounting applications.
• Zapier: Zapier is a free service that integrates with 500+ business tools to help boost productivity. A user can create workflow automations called “Zaps” that connect Box to CRM, marketing, and team communication tools. Small business owners, for example, can use a Zap to save every client's newly paid invoice to Box. Simultaneously, the Zap will update the client's info in a CRM and send the client a confirmation email.

Get started today with Box webhooks and learn more about the API-based configuration and management.

Join us at BoxWorks 2016 to learn more about how Box is enabling developers to build secure enterprise-grade applications and feel free to provide feedback in our developer forum.