Creating Custom Connectors
To use ThingWorx Flow custom connectors, provide an appropriately authenticated and authorized access to the system in some form.
Most of the services require authentication in some form. You can add an authentication mechanism using the add connection and add OAuth commands. ThingWorx Flow CLI and ThingWorx Flow server support OAuth 2.0 and OAuth 1.0 authentication.
Commonly used authentication methods are described in the following list:
• Basic authentication—A simple authentication scheme built into the HTTP protocol. You need to provide the user name and password when making a request.
• API Key authentication—Allows you to access data. For example, this mechanism involves sending a key value pair either as a query string parameter or a header.
• OAuth based authentication—Token-based authentication method that allows your account information to be used by any external service without exposing the password. For example, you can access the resources of a service by logging in the account.
For example, Windchill uses Basic and OAuth based authentication. Follow the steps described in
Creating Authenticators to create authenticators for your system.
ThingWorx Flow can handle any authentication scheme. It has an in-built handling mechanism for OAuth that can be setup by simple configuration without the need for coding. Any other authentication falls under the connection classification and must be coded by the connector developer when making a connection with the service through the Connection object. Some systems may not support OAuth mechanism. They may use other mechanisms for authentication such as basic authentication with a user name and password or they may support a key–based mechanism. Connections need to be defined for all systems that do not support OAuth. Follow the steps described in
Creating Connectors for systems that do not support Oauth mechanism.