CDP and Personalize offer the powerful ability to connect to various endpoints, which can significantly expand their functionality. These endpoints are divided into three categories: Data Systems, AI, and Destination.
Data Systems and AI models can only be used in decision models. CDP and Personalize can access valuable data and insights that inform their decision-making processes by connecting to these endpoints. Then, you can leverage that data in the same decision model with the use of decision tables or programmable decisions to send all the data you need to experiences or experiments.
Destination connections, on the other hand, are specifically designed for triggered full stack experiences, as they allow CDP and Personalize to send data to external systems. CDP and Personalize can communicate with other systems and platforms to ensure a seamless user experience. The most common use is to send emails or SMS to any customer when something happens on your site.
Overall, the ability to connect to various endpoints is a key strength of Sitecore CDP and Personalize. By leveraging these connections effectively, businesses can access critical data and insights from any source, and seamlessly integrate their systems with other platforms for a superior customer experience. For more information, you can see the official documentation here.
The first thing you need to do is go to the developer center and enter connections, there you will see all your available connections and you can create more. So click on add connection and select the type of connection you need.
All types of connections have the same creation steps: configure general information, configure authentication, configure the request itself, map the results, and save it. After selecting the type of connection needed you will see a wizard with all those steps.
There you will need to add the authentication needed for that connection, or, if it is a simple endpoint without authentication needed you can just select none.
To configure the request first you need to select if it is going to be a GET, POST, or PUT request. In all of those cases, you need to add the URL, configure the needed headers, and add the connection timeout, and the read timeout. Finally, you have to test your request.
If your request isn’t valid you are not going to be able to continue creating the connection.
If your request is a POST or a PUT you will have an extra input where you can add a body to your request to test it.
If you need to have a dynamic URL (for example, you need to change a query parameter or you need to send a special value on each request) you can add that input with this syntax in the URL ${variable}. So for the same example you can get only one product by id, so the URL could be: https://dummyjson.com/products/${productId}
In order to be able to use connections, you need to create a decision model or a full stack triggered experience. This depends on the type of connection you want to use, so for example, if you need to use a destination connection you need to create a triggered experience in order to connect that. On the other side, if you need to get data from a data system or you need to connect an AI model, you will need to create a decision model and there you will be able to use your connections.
When creating a full stack experience, you can select the type of it, so in this case, you will need to select the triggered type. There, the experience itself will be an API request, so click on Configure API request.
The next thing you will need to select is your connection. You have to take into consideration that only the destination connections are going to be listed there.There you will need to add the API body for your connection. You can test your connection and see if it does what you need, and finally, you can publish your experience!
On the other hand, if you need to connect a destination connection or an AI model, you need to create a decision model and add your connections there.
So first, add a variant and there you are going to see external systems in the menu. You can drag and drop those nodes and there you are going to be able to select your connection, but here you are only going to be able to see the data system connections and the AI connections respectively.
After selecting your connection you are going to be able to add the inputs if the connection was configured for that, and also you are going to be able to see the outputs. Those variables are usable in any other node in the decision model, so you can use them in a decision table, in a programmable, or also in another external system.
