Overview
Twitter can be a great tool for both marketing and internal communication. JSCAPE MFT Server offers the ability to respond to server events with both Twitter updates and direct messages. In this article we will discuss how to setup your JSCAPE MFT Server to respond to a File Upload event by sending a Twitter update message to a test Twitter account.
Sending Twitter Updates
In this example we will be using a Trigger with the “File Upload” Event Type and the “Twitter Update” Action. To achieve integration with Twitter we will be logging into https://dev.twitter.com with our test Twitter account and creating a new application for that Twitter account. This will allow JSCAPE MFT Server to authenticate to your Twitter account each time it needs to post a new update. Although we are using the “File Upload” Event Type in this example, there are many other events that JSCAPE MFT Server can respond to with a Twitter update. Once we go through this example you should have a good grasp on how to set this up so you can experiment with other Event Types.
To begin we need to create a new Trigger so click on the “Trigger” node under your server domain and click “Add”. Let’s give our new Trigger an appropriate name. We will then select the “File Upload” Event Type from the drop down menu. We will also give this Trigger a Description, then click “Next”.
Now we need an Expression for the Trigger conditions. Because we want our Twitter update message to be sent when we have a successful file upload we will use the expression: Success = TRUE
You could also set the “Success” value to equal “FALSE” if you want the Twitter update message to be sent when a file upload fails. Now we can click “Next”.
Now we need to add our Trigger Action. Click the “Add” button. From the “Action” drop down menu select “Twitter Update”. For this Action we have five required fields which are Consumer Key, Consumer Secret, Access Token, Access Token Secret and Status. The first four fields are authentication related and the fifth field is where we will type our message we want sent to Twitter as an update.
At this point we need to open a web browser and navigate to https://dev.twitter.com and log into our test Twitter account. Once logged in, hover your cursor over your account name in the top right corner of the page and click on “My Applications”.
You may or may not have any applications created here, my account does not. Now let’s click on the “Create a new application” button. Fill out the information required on the form and proceed. Your new application should now be created.
Now let’s navigate to the “Settings” tab. Scroll down to “Application Type” and under “Access” let’s give JSCAPE MFT Server “Read, Write and Access to direct messages”. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Update this Twitter application’s settings”. Now navigate to the “Details” tab and scroll to the bottom and you should see a button to “Create my access token”, click it. Your access token should now be created. Now navigate to the “OAuth Tool” tab and you should now see the authentication information that our Trigger Action was asking us for.
Now we can copy and paste this information into our new Trigger Action and write the message you would like to send to Twitter when this Action executes.
Now click “OK” and click “OK” again and finally click “Apply”. Now your Twitter update trigger is complete.
So we can now test this new trigger by logging into our web portal and uploading a file or uploading a file with AnyClient. Keep in mind that if you change your Twitter application access you will have to generate a new token and enter the new token into your trigger. Now you have the information you need to begin exploring your options for Twitter integration with JSCAPE MFT Server.