Ahoy Workato integrators! Over the summer, we’ve released several exciting new features to help boost your productivity and increase the number of apps you can integrate on the platform.
From improvements to our connectors to usability enhancements, learn about the new features across our platform in this product release. This quarter, efforts have been focused on features designed to enhance platform security, customizability as well as give you access to new global adapters. We definitely hope all the new changes ensure you get the most out of your integrations.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the fruits of the past three months at Workato!
Security enhancements
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
In today’s online environment, the rudimentary “username and password” approach to security is no longer viable when it comes to important data in our apps and various systems. Since many of our users connector their business applications ranging from CRMs to HR systems and finance management apps, protecting all that sensitive data will always be of paramount focus.
As many will already be familiar, multi-factor Authentication, of which 2FA is a subset of, adds another layer of security, supplementing the username and password model with a code that only a specific user has access to. Users can now add a secondary layer of security to protect unauthorized and fraudulent access to their Workato account.
Workato’s two-factor authentication uses a software generated time-based, one-time passcode (also called TOTP, or soft-token). To start using 2FA:
- First, a user must download and install a free 2FA app (e.g. Google Authenticator, Authy, or other) on their smartphone or desktop
- Next, they will need to go to their Account settings section to enable two-factor authentication.
- When enabled, the user will be prompted to go through a couple of simple steps to activate 2FA for their account
Similar to SSO, enterprise IT teams can now use 2FA to alleviate risks by enforcing security policies that require 2FA. This both enables secure on-boarding of collaborators to a team and eliminates the painful policy for periodic password reset.
To learn more about setting up 2FA for your Workato account, use the links below:
Using custom roles for JIT provisioning
For all customers that are using a shared workspace (Teams) and with SAML based SSO (e.g. OKTA, One Login or other), this new enhancement is for you!
Just-in-Time provisioning enables customers to use a SAML assertion to create users in downstream apps e.g. Workato on-demand when users log into the app for the very first time. This eliminates the need to manually provision user accounts in advance. For example, instead of manually creating a Workato account for a new employee customers can use Just-in-Time provisioning to dynamically create the Workato account when the new employee initially logs in using Single Sign On (SSO).
This ensures reduced administrative costs since it eliminates manual work to provision Workato accounts thus reducing cost of operations. More importantly, it ensures better security, since in addition to the access/security policies enforced by the identity provider, customers can now enforce custom security policies for Workato accounts.
Documentation is available should you wish to add this functionality to your team.
API Platform with JWT authentication
Workato’s API Platform was released in February this year and we’ve seen many customers grow their businesses and product offerings just in the past few months.
If you’re new to the API platform, here’s a quick summary of what is provides:
- RESTful API Endpoints – expose callable recipes as RESTFUL endpoints
- API access control – JWT and auth token based authentication; IP whitelisting
- API Collections & Policies – Purpose specific API groups; rate and usage metering for QoS
- Dashboard & Activity – Real-time monitoring of usage and health
Zooming straight in into the enhancement we made over the summer — the introduction of the JWT token. A token value is a secret that is shared between a client and the Workato server. A token is passed to the API in an authorization header. The header must have a valid value in order for the call to succeed. This allows the APIs you create on Workato to be safely shared with your clients and your clients only.
For additional security, clients can now make use of JSON Web Tokens (JWT). These is a standard RFC 7159 method for web authentication. JWT tokens are signed using a secret or key selected by the client.
Alongside Workato recipes, the API platform gives you a zero DevOps way to share data without direct access to underlying apps and systems. Best of all, business analysts, app admins, and non-developer personas can both publish and consume these APIs!
Here are some resources to get you started on the API platform:
Connectors enhancements
Hubspot
HubSpot offers a full stack of software for marketing, sales, and customer service, with a completely free CRM at its core.
It provides products and solutions for connecting with leads, email tracking, email marketing, sales automation, lead management, pipeline management, scheduling meetings, content management system, and has over 60,000 customers in over 100 countries.
If you’re one of those 60,000 customers, you’ll be pleased to know that the Hubspot connector has been updated to support new triggers, actions and custom fields!
The new set of triggers and actions enables automation of marketing workflows for campaign management, email list generation, lead enrichment, lead tracking, customer onboarding, partner onboarding, and more. It enables Hubspot customers to build custom workflows, connect to on-prem apps/databases, and perform bulk operations e.g. syncing millions of contacts with Salesforce or Mailchimp.
Get started with Hubspot and any of our list of 1000+ apps today!
Zendesk Sunshine
Zendesk Sunshine is an open, flexible CRM platform. Sunshine is built on AWS and lets customers seamlessly connect and understand all their customer data–wherever it lives. With Zendesk Sunshine, customers can build entirely custom applications that help go beyond customer support.
Good news, as Workato is the first, and currently the only integration platform to support Zendesk Sunshine! The Zendesk connector has been updated to support actions for newly introduced Zendesk Sunshine objects and APIs.
Sunshine is natively built in the public cloud on Amazon Web Services, which means developers get the freedom to build your customer apps or services the way they want. Data will flow more freely through the AWS services that developers already use.
Check out the overview of the connector to find out more about the triggers and action we support for Zendesk.
Coupa
Coupa is a cloud-based business spend management platform that extends the ability of traditional ERP systems like SAP, NetSuite and Oracle EBS.
A key component of Coupa’s ability to create value for its customers stems from its ability to easily transfer data between itself and other applications essential for their business. With a robust REST API, it can manage both integrations ranging from simple ones to highly complex multi-step workflows.
The Coupa Connector provides:
- Polling Triggers – For major standard objects e.g. Account, Address, Contract, Expense Report, Lookup Value, Inventory Transaction, Supplier, and more
- Actions – To create/update standard objects, close purchase order, Get Object id, Search objects, and more
- Custom Actions – To extend the functionality of the connector
- Custom Fields- Access to standard and custom fields for various objects
Learn more about how Workato can extend Coupa with the rest of your apps in your app stack in the dedicated blog post. Also included in the post are a whole suite of recipes that show you how our customers have used Coupa in a wide range of Procure-To-Pay, Procure-To-Order or Expense management processes between Coupa and their ERP systems.
We hope you have enjoyed this Summer’s edition of product updates! For more, please visit: https://docs.workato.com/product-updates.html or click on ‘Product updates’ on your account dropdown.
