Integrate with Context API without coding skills

With Context Annotations API you can integrate in minutes and automatically send relevant business events to your Context dashboards.

With our API and some coding skills, you have full control over what you send to Context.

However, if you don't have the needed coding skills, you will also be able to do it with just a few clicks, taking advantage of tools such as IFTTT.

In this example, we're going to see how to track your competitors' Twitter activity in your Context dashboards without writing a single line of code.

Context meets Donald Trump, thanks to our API & IFTTT

We know for sure that Donald Trump's activity in life has a huge impact on the rest of humanity. And it could be the case that this guy's activity on Twitter could really impact our website traffic figures.

Let's see the steps you need to follow if you want to bring Donald Trump's tweets to your Context dashboards, and have his activity and your Google Analytics KPIs just in the same place.

Context meets Donald Tru

First things first: what is IFTTT?

IFTTT is a very easy to use automation service. And the acronym stands for If This, Then That.

IFTTT is a free platform that helps you connect most of the apps and devices you use every day, automating many tasks without development skills. Which is super cool by the way.

With IFTTT Applets you can bring your services together to create new experiences.

A few examples of what you could do with IFTTT:

  • If it will rain tomorrow, then send me an email
  • If I take a screenshot in my Android device, then send me an email
  • If a new user is added to my subscriber list, then add a row in a Google Spreadsheet
  • If a specific Twitter user tweets, then send an event to my Context dashboard

Let's see the last example in details: If Donald Trump tweets, then send an event to my Context dashboard.

1. Create your Context account

We're still in private beta mode. So, if you didn't make it up to this stage, feel free to request free early access to our public beta. Coming soon...

context-claim-post

2. Create your IFTTT account

Go to IFTTT and create your account. It's free.

ifttt-home

3. Create a new applet

Go to "My applets" section in the navigation menu:

14 - Context and IFTTT

Click on "New applet" to start the process:

15 - Context and IFTTT

4. If this...

Time to select the trigger for our action. Click on the big blue "this":

01 - Context and IFTTT

5. Choose Twitter as a service

In our example, we will use Twitter as the service that will trigger our desired action. So let's filter by "Twitter" and select the service:

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6. Go for "New tweet by a specific user" option

We have many options to choose from within Twitter. We're interested in the "New tweet by a specific user" option.

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7. Add the user whose tweets you want to monitor

Time to specify that we want to follow up our friend Donald Trump's tweets:

04 - Context and IFTTT OK

8. ... then that

Time to select the outcome of Trump tweeting. Click on the big and blue "that":

05 - Context and IFTTT

9. Select Webhooks as an action service

To send the information from Twitter to Context, we'll use "Webhooks" as the active service. So filter and select Webhooks:

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10. "Make a web request" is the only option you can choose

Choose the only option available at this moment:

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11. Copy/Paste the URL we provide you

The first thing you need to do in the "Complete action fields" section is adding the publicly accessible URL that we provided you when activating Annotations API within Context.

Copy the URL from Context:

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Paste the URL in IFTTT:

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12. Choose "Post" method

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13. Choose "application/json" as Content type and copy/paste the data

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You can find the data you have to copy/paste in Context:

Context and IFTTT

14. Add your ingredients

This is the time to configure how you want to see the annotation in your Context reports.

An annotation in Context has a very simple format:

  • title: it's the annotation title you will see in your Context reports. This field is mandatory.
  • category: it's an attribute you can use to categorize your annotations in a way that fits your needs. This field is mandatory.
  • description: you can use this field to add additional details about the annotation. This field is mandatory.
  • url: if you want to match your annotation with a given URL for further details, you can add it here. This field is optional.

For our purpose, we decided to go as follows:

  • title: we want to see the name of the user that tweets, plus a friendly sentence that says "New tweet by...". Place your mouse between the quotation marks next to "title" and click on "Add ingredient". From the list, select the "UserName" ingredient and add the text you want before or after it.
  • category: we want to add all Donald Trump's tweets under the same category. So we will add the "UserName" ingredient for the category.
  • description: we want to read the details of Trump's tweets right in our Context reports so we will use the "Text" ingredient for the description.
  • url: in order to jump to the unique URL that contains the specific tweet, we'll add the "LinkToTweet" ingredient

You can see the full example in the next screenshot:

11 - Context and IFTTT

15. Review and...

Double check if everything is good and decide whether you also want to get mail notifications each time the applet runs:

12 - Context and IFTTT

16. You're done!

And that's it. Next time Donald Trump tweets (which happens quite a lot), you will see an annotation in your context reports:

13 - Context and IFTTT ok