Understanding Connectors

Connectors let you interact with third-party systems from within Front, no coding required. Imagine accessing order or shipment info, canceling orders, or updating CRM records, all without leaving Front. Connectors make this possible quickly and easily - we even have some prebuilt connectors that you can use right out of the box! Connectors come in two varieties: application requests and application objects.

More resources:

• See our developer documentation for additional details.

• Take a Front Academy course here to learn more about how Connectors work.

• Have questions? Ask them in our AMA in Front Community!

Application objects are a simple way to get information from a third-party system and display it as a comment or link inside a Front conversation.

For example, if a customer is writing in to your support team to ask about a specific order, Front can detect the order ID in conversation messages or comments and automatically attach a link to the order object in your external system. The application object is added to the message, and you can click on the text pattern to display the information:

The application object also displays at the top of the conversation:

Front can also display information about the order inline with the conversation in the form of a comment:

You can create application objects for anything that has an established pattern to its identifier (such as an ID, URL, etc.) and a public API to return information about the object. Once you create a Connector with an application object, you can specify when it should trigger and to what inboxes it should apply to via a rule.

Common use cases

• Tracking an order or shipment

• Showing the status of a bug or issue

• Viewing a customer’s account information

Application requests offer you the ability to make an API request directly from Front. API requests are a way for different software applications to communicate with each other. In the context of Front, application requests allow you to trigger actions in third-party systems, such as creating a new order, updating a customer record, or sending a notification. 

For example, imagine your company uses an e-commerce platform like Shopify. You could configure an application request to allow your support team to cancel a customer's order directly from within Front. Instead of having to switch to Shopify and manually find the order, an agent could trigger a "Cancel Order" application request. This request would send the necessary information (like the order ID) to Shopify's API, initiating the cancellation process without the agent ever leaving Front. This saves time, reduces the potential for errors, and provides a smoother experience for both your team and your customers.

You could also use application requests to allow Front teammates to execute actions in external systems via a macro. For example, a teammate could cancel a customer’s order without having to switch to your order management system to do so.

Common use cases

• Updating or canceling orders in an e-commerce platform

• Updating a CRM based on customer interactions

• Updating bug statuses in a project management system

Want to tap into the power of Connectors right away? Front offers a growing library of prebuilt Connectors for popular tools, allowing you to integrate them with just a few clicks! 

• Jira: Keep your support and development teams in sync effortlessly. Link Front conversations directly to Jira issues, see issue status updates right within Front, and even create new Jira issues without leaving your inbox. Stay on top of bug reports and feature requests like never before!

• Highway: Instantly access crucial carrier risk assessments from Highway directly within relevant Front conversations. Make informed decisions about who you're working with and flag potential fraud risks before they become a problem.

• Tai: Streamline your freight management by bringing key Tai TMS (Transportation Management System) information directly into Front. Get quick visibility into shipment statuses, track deliveries, and respond to customer inquiries with real-time data at your fingertips.

These prebuilt Connectors are a fantastic way to experience the immediate benefits of integrations and see how connecting your systems with Front can simplify your workflows.

Once you configure a Connector, whether it be an application request or an application object, you’ll have to enable a workflow in Front to take advantage of your Connector. Otherwise, your Connector is simply a configuration in your developer settings that doesn’t take any effect.

Your options to enable application requests include:

• Rules: Specify the triggers for your application request (or, application object). For example, if a conversation is moved to a specific inbox in Front, you might want to run an application request that changes the status of an object in an external system.

• Macros: Execute an application request as a result of a Front user running a macro. For example, a Front user can click on your macro to create a new item in your external system based on a customer conversation.

• Chatbots: Leverage the power of Front chatbots to automatically trigger application requests based on customer input or conversation flow. This allows you to automate actions in external systems based on chatbot interactions, like looking up a customer’s order status.

• Others: In the future, Front may include additional methods for enabling application requests as Connectors become more embedded within Front workflows.

Connectors are available on the Scale plan or above.