An Introduction to Webhooks

Why Do Webhooks Matter?

Ever wonder if there’s some secret sauce companies use to boost productivity, data integrity, and employee satisfaction? Well, *gasp* there is. The sauce is called system integrations.

There are a handful of ways you can integrate your systems including Salesforce: APIs/Webservices, webhooks, middleware, custom coding, etc. We are here to break them all down for you. Why? Because we want you and your business to be an efficient, coordinated powerhouse – and you can’t do that while spending your time platform-hopping and double-entering data all day.

In this blog series, you’ll learn about the various ways systems and applications integrate with one another and the differences between each.

Let’s begin with webhooks.

What is a Webhook?

A webhook, also known as web or HTTP callbacks, is an API concept and a way for an app to provide other apps with information in real time. As the name suggests, it “hooks” one application on the web to another – enabling an integration between the two.

What is a Salesforce Webhook?

A Salesforce webhook is no different than any other type of webhook except that it is sent or received from the Salesforce platform. Since Salesforce offers no declarative way out-of-the-box to send webhooks, typically webhooks are sent via Apex. On the other hand, Salesforce webhooks are commonly received and processed via a REST resource hosted on a Salesforce Site–typically custom developed. Providing a Salesforce native way to build, send and receive webhooks in Salesforce is a problem solved by our Salesforce Webhook Creator.

How Does a Webhook Work?

To use webhooks you first need to understand how they work. Webhooks are user-defined HTTP callbacks, triggered by specific events. When a certain event takes place that is defined by the user at the source site or application, a webhook is triggered to collect data and send it to a specified location, typically defined by a URL or URI often called an “endpoint”. Webhooks are one-way transmissions, but can also be set-up for handling “responses” on the originating connection.

That doesn’t make total sense? No worries, we’ll provide an example to help break it down.

Salesforce Webhook Example Use Case

You’re the Director of Operations at a real estate brokerage company. In addition to Salesforce, your company also uses a prospecting company, Real Prospecting. Real Estate Prospect Pro has their own platform.

You notice your real estate agents spending way too much time manually entering leads qualified in Real Estate Prospect Pro into Salesforce. You know your agents aren’t able to generate revenue if they are busy doing duplicate data entry and with how busy they are. Manual data entry is prone to error. You decide that you need to find a solution to connect the two platforms so that when a Lead is generated in Real Estate Prospect Pro, it creates the same Lead in Salesforce.

How do webhooks come in? A webhook is what’s going to instantly send data from Real Estate Prospect Pro to Salesforce and do this only when a Lead is created. This makes the connection very intentional and specific based on your needs – hence “user-defined”. Even though this connection is one-way, once Salesforce receives the data successfully and creates the Lead, it can send a response to Real Estate Prospect Pro acknowledging successful receipt of the data (or an error response if something went wrong). In our example, the response and its user-defined “action” checks a box on the Lead’s profile in Real Estate Prospect Pro for “Logged in Salesforce” so the management team can confirm the data has been synced.

What Makes Webhooks Different?

As mentioned earlier, there are other ways systems can integrate with one another. The main difference between webhooks and another method like polling APIs is that webhooks are event based, rather than request based – which allows for nearly instant data exchange. Curious about APIs? Check out our upcoming “How Salesforce Connects with Other Platforms: Part 2” for a more in-depth look at APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces.

To summarize, webhooks are triggered by events and are a one way data transmission, but can include responses back to the original source, creating an integration between the two systems. Implementing webhooks between your Salesforce org and any of your other platforms can eliminate platform hopping and duplicate data entry all while automatically reinforcing Salesforce as your company’s single source of truth.