Remote Lookup Field

Connect your app to a 3rd party service to GET or POST values

Mayakrishnan Ramar avatar
Written by Mayakrishnan Ramar
Updated over a week ago

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The remote lookup field is a great way to get data from external systems into your form. 

One of the most common use cases is getting a current currency exchange rate. For example, let’s say you want to convert an order that was entered in USD into GBP. 

In the KiSSFLOW form, let’s start with a number field called PO Total that shows the total price of the PO in USD. 

Then add a remote lookup field called GBP Conversion Rate. Click on More Options to expand. In the Field Should Contain section, in the URL of Resource field, enter the URL to direct toward the API.

In this example, we are going get the conversion URL to use an API from CurrencyLayer, a 3rd party API. You can sign up for a free account at https://currencylayer.com/product

Find your access key in Step 3 of the Quickstart guide. Note that with CurrencyLayer’s free account, your source currency will always be USD. 

Back in the KiSSFLOW form, enter this in the URL of Resource field, replacing the [access_key] placeholder with your actual access key:

 http://www.apilayer.net/api/live?access_key=[access_key]

The remote lookup allows you to do either a GET or a POST request. I’ll choose GET for this example. Next, you can add HEADER and BODY parameters in the API request. This is useful when you are making authenticated calls to other API Services. 

Next, configure the field to Auto populate a value and configure the result type to be JSON. You can choose between JSON, XML and Plain Text. For JSON and XML there is an extra JSONPath and XPATH field to search, filter out, and show only a part of the API result.

To display the computed values in a specified format, enter this in the JSON path:

$.quotes.USD[CurrencyType]

In our case, the JSON path will be:

$.quotes.USDGBP

If you want to automatically calculate the converted amount, add a new number field with two decimal places called PO in GBP. Mark it as a computed field and enter the formula:

PO_Total*GBP_Conversion_Rate

In the live form, you’ll see a button for GET requests that says Fetch GBP Conversion Rate. Click the button and KiSSFLOW will perform a remote call and fetch the live value. Then, our calculated field will show the converted amount.

Pro Tips

In addition to currency rates, you can use the remote lookup field to:

  • Get stock and bullion rates

  • Refer to data on a different MDM system

Reduce the number of remote fields by storing the entire JSON/XML data from one call instead of just a particular value and using JSON_EXTRACT formula in other fields.

More Configuration Options

URL of Resource - The URL where you access the API
Call Type - GET retrieves data, POST sends data

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