I've never used an API workflow

As the title says: I’ve never used an API workflow and I’ve made some pretty heavy apps. I’m afraid that I have missed the whole concept of API’s. When reading here on the forum, I get the conception that APIs are essential.

They are indeed! :slight_smile: for many reasons:

  • Performing an action on a list (such as generating x number of Things)
  • Running scheduled workflows, even if the user has closed the app
  • Running repeated workflows, such as a weekly system cleanup
  • Speeding up the app by using parallell processing (moving workflows from the app into API workflows)
  • Allowing other systems to execute workflows in your app

That’s just at the top of my head, I’m sure others can give a lot of other good scenarios to use API workflows. They’re nowhere near as scary as they sound, I highly recommend you get to know them!

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When you schedule an API workflow it basically is doing something on the backend without requiring any user to actually be present. Normally when you have a workflow run it depends on the user actually staying on the website. So API workflows are sort of hidden from the user. Does that make sense?

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If you ever need to create/modify data between two apps, you should look at my forum post to get started. Scheduling API Workflows follow a similar routine.

Thank you for your answers!

@petter will absolutely get to know them. Mainly for speed reasons.

@J805 Makes sense, thanks!

@J805 Will take a look, thanks!

Yes, you’ll love it when you see what it can do to the speed of the app for the user. It really makes everything run a lot smoother.

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