Testing Your Apps on Integry
One of the most crucial aspects of developing something is testing. In the software world, building anything reliable requires testing. Testing integrations is even harder since you’re dealing with multiple complex systems that are usually out of your control. Testing in the integrations space continues to be a challenge and one that we continue to work on and make easier for everyone. Today, in this blog post, we want to run you through how you can use our current suite of testing tools to make sure what you’re building is working.
On Integry, you can test pretty much anything: authorizations, actions, triggers, queries, and endpoints while creating your app as well as templates. When testing, we send API calls to your app, and the call’s log is displayed to make troubleshooting easier. Once you test each component individually, it gets much easier to combine them and roll out bug-free integrations to your users.
Let’s walk through the details of testing components while creating an app. Testing them in templates will be touched upon in another post. You can still visit the template testing details in our help documentation.
Testing Authorizations
To communicate with any external service, you will usually start by defining its authentication, whether that’s in OAuth, API Key, etc. So, a first step is making sure your authentication works.
When your user creates an integration, they need to authorize Integry on their behalf, so we can consume their app’s API. You can check the validity of an authorization by testing it after its creation.
Any authorizations you create can be tested under the Authorizations tab in the Apps menu. The Authorizations page displays the list of authorizations you have created, along with a tab for Connected Accounts below that list. The tab shows available authorizations and the user accounts added against each authorization.
Each type of authorization can be tested with its respective method. For OAuth, you need to provide your account credentials for the app. In the case of API-Key, you need to enter your account’s API-Key. The user account is added against the authorization, just like at the time of integration creation.
To check whether the added account is properly connected or not, you can click on the test icon against that account as shown below. If the account shows the Connected label afterward, that means your authorization is working properly. If the account was not properly connected, there might be a problem with your authorization. To learn about the reasons for a failed authorization and how to troubleshoot them, click here.
Testing Endpoints
Endpoints are the typically REST URLs where the API calls are made. You can test the individual endpoints and see if they return the expected response.
For now, you can only test outgoing endpoints. For incoming endpoints, you cannot test them independently. However, you can just test the triggers themselves, as these endpoints are only used in triggers. Trigger testing will be discussed later. To test an endpoint, you need to head over to the Endpoints page in the Apps menu.
While testing, Integry sends a call to the external API. The test call works the same way as the call sent by a user running the integration. Some of the call details are picked up automatically, while some you can specify yourself using the JSON Input Editor, as described here. This call returns the response back to Integry and lets you know if the call was successful or not.
Clicking this button makes a test interface appear. This interface is like a form that takes the basic information required to execute the test call. You can learn about the details of adding this information here.
After providing any input data in the above form (if required), clicking on the Send Test Call button will start the test.
The test call response indicates whether the call was successful or not, as shown in the figure below. You can also view the request you sent and the response received by the external API. Find out more about this here.
After testing an endpoint, you can move on to testing the activity where that endpoint has been used.
Testing Actions
When you test an action, Integry actually performs that action on the other app. This gives you a practical idea of that action’s functionality.
You can perform action testing by going to the Actions page in the Apps menu. Click the Test icon in front of any action as shown below.
Clicking the test icon will open a test interface. This is where you’ll provide the required account and field information needed to execute the action. Learn all about that here. Once you’ve added in the information, clicking on the Send Test Call button will execute the action.
The test call response indicates whether the action was successful or not. You can also view the request you sent and the response received by the external API. Check your app to cross-verify if the action was performed.
Read about action testing in detail here.
Testing Triggers
Testing a trigger is quite similar to testing actions. The difference is that the trigger test waits for you to perform the required activity in the app. Once you trigger that event, the response will be received in the test interface, indicating the correct functionality of your trigger.
To start the trigger testing process, go to the Triggers page in your app’s menu. Click the test icon in front of any trigger as shown below.
This will open a test interface below the list of the triggers as shown below. You will again need to add your account and provide info for any required fields. Once done, you can click the Start Test button to proceed.
This will display the status of the call along with a message as shown below. If your trigger runs successfully, it will show a message with a waiting symbol. This tells you that the test is now running and is waiting for the trigger’s response from the third-party app. Once you perform that activity in the app, another success message will be shown that will display the content of the event you performed.
All the details of the trigger testing are provided here.
Testing Queries
Testing a Query is almost identical to testing the other activities in your app. As a query imports data from another app to Integry, this test also brings in the data to Integry. If the query is successful, you’ll be able to view all the records that the query has imported.
The testing can be performed by clicking the test icon against any query on the Queries page of an app. This will again open a test interface where you’ll need to provide an account and the field information. Clicking on Start Test will execute the query in the third-party app. The results are displayed in a manner similar to the activities discussed above.
The query testing interface, response, and the testing procedure is discussed in detail here.
Testing is a very handy tool to perfect your integrations before rolling them out to your users. While our testing feature is fully functional for all components, we’re constantly working to make it even better for you. Your feedback is extremely useful in that regard. Drop us a line at hello@integry.io or our social media platforms to share your thoughts and feedback.
