Forum Discussion

RobinGold's avatar
RobinGold
Qrew Member
6 years ago

Automation to get data from a non-QuickBase API

Can anyone help me understand how to create an automation (or other automated tool) to get data from an external (non-QuickBase) API on a schedule?

For example, I would like to get daily weather data from the Dark Sky API. In order to use that API, you have to set up a free account to get your own API key. Once you have that, you can get daily weather data from that API using a URL that contains the date, lat/long and your API key as shown below (in this example it is for Feb 17, 2020, 11:00 AM at Boeing Field in Seattle) :

https://api.darksky.net/forecast/your API key goes here/47.528340,-122.301837,2020-02-17T11:00:00?exclude=hourly,currently,monthly,flags,alerts

Once per day, I would like my automation to create a new row in the Weather table of my app; make an API call to DarkSky for the previous calendar date; and fill in the new row in my Weather table with the date and the summary, temperatureHigh, temperatureLow and precipIntensity fields from the API call. 

Any help appreciated!

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Robin Gold
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APIs and custom code
Integration
  • DonLarson's avatar
    DonLarson
    Qrew Elite
    6 years ago
    Robin,

    What you need is coming soon.  You have a short wait for Pipelines.   

    Alternatively you can do this with custom scripts, PHP or a similar language.

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    Don Larson
    Paasporter
    Westlake OH
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  • JonathanHeuer's avatar
    JonathanHeuer
    Qrew Cadet
    6 years ago
    Robin, if you're not on the QB Platform or Enterprise Plans, you may not get access to Pipelines (my understanding). If you don't want to write code, you can use external tools like Workato or Zapier to create your automation.

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    Jonathan Heuer
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    • MarkShnier__You's avatar
      MarkShnier__You
      Icon for Qrew Legend rankQrew Legend
      6 years ago
      Robin, the short answer is that right today its not easy.  If you want to get a contact from me for some people who know how to do this, contact me off line and I can make a recommendation.  Hopefully Quick Base will improve Pipelines to dumb this down for the rest of us who are not coders and want to stay with native Quick Base.

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      Mark Shnier (YQC)
      Quick Base Solution Provider
      Your Quick Base Coach
      http://QuickBaseCoach.com
      mark.shnier@gmail.com
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  • RobinGold's avatar
    RobinGold
    Qrew Member
    6 years ago
    Thank you all very much for the responses. Unfortunately we don't have any budget or authorization for additional third party applications or developers, so I will wait for pipelines to come out and hope that it will make these types of tasks straightforward.

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    Robin Gold
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