Callable recipes
Callable recipes are a type of recipe that can be called from another recipe. It's a way to decompose your recipes into smaller recipes, to help simplify as well as enable reuse (i.e. callable recipe can be called from multiple recipes)
Unlike other recipes that are started by a trigger event, callable recipe steps are executed when the recipe is called from another recipe.
Callable recipes can also be accessed via REST API.
Advantages of using callable recipes
Easier to test By using a single block/loop in a separate recipe instead of repeating the single block/loop multiple times within a recipe, you just have to change the code in one place and test it instead of multiple places in the recipe.
Making recipes more readable Instead of having really long recipes, break it out into smaller recipes that can be called
Sharing across recipes If you have a standard error notification policy, you can create a recipe and then have all recipes call this recipe for error notification
Sharing across accounts and with business partners You can expose REST APIs to your business partners. e.g. a REST API that provides inventory status to your suppliers.
Using callable recipes
Let’s take a look at an example to see how this works. Say you want to automate the process of creating an invoice in Quickbooks Online (QBO) when an opportunity is closed-won in Salesforce. The recipe logic would be Create a new customer if customer does not exist
In order to create a QBO invoice, you’ll need to create a new customer if the customer does not already exist in QBO. Now, this snippet of logic: “creating a customer in QBO when they don’t already exist,” is a process that is necessary not only with your Salesforce to QBO integrations, but also when you have Point Of Sale (POS) transactions flowing into QBO, invoices you receive from your vendors and more. Instead of recreating the logic for “creating a customer in QBO when they don’t already exist,” you can make this snippet of logic into a Callable Recipe.
Step 1. Create a new recipe
Create a recipe as you normally would, and for the trigger, select Callable Recipe under the application picklist.
Select callable recipe connector and call recipe action
Fill in a Name for the recipe, and fill up the Input Schema and the Response Schema in the JSON Format. You can find out more about JSON here.
In simple terms, the input schema determines what fields will be shown and need to be filled in when a callable recipe action is created in the calling recipe. The Response schema determines what pills will be available for use in the calling recipes Output data.
Lastly, you may choose to enable REST endpoint for your recipe. This defaults to No.
Next, create your set of actions for the recipe. For this example you would create a set of standard de-duplication steps, run a search, and if the search gives no results, create a customer. If an existing customer is found, update customer.
Step 2: Call recipe
Create a recipe that requires the logic from the callable recipe we created earlier. Set up the trigger as required, and when created the actions you need. When you need to call the callable recipe, simply click on Add a new step, select call recipe, choose the recipe you created earlier, and you will see the fields from your input schema appear. Simply drag and drop the required pills and you'll be good to go!
Calling Recipes from Other Apps with REST API
Enabling a REST endpoint for recipes makes it available to be called by any application, internal or external, as long as they have the API token to do so. The token ensures the security of your API. Choosing to build simple web and mobile apps using Workato and a REST Endpoint takes out a majority of the custom coding that would be involved and ensures a fast turnaround. There are two ways you can use a REST Endpoint:
Bring Information Into An App
You can connect any app that has an API available with a REST Endpoint even if Workato doesn’t have a connector for that app. For example, if you want to bring in information from Zillow.com so you know how much a real estate property is worth, you can create a REST Endpoint that will populate your fields in QuickBase every time an employee run the recipe.You can also create a button that will start the REST Endpoint recipe. You can place the button wherever you would like, for example inside of Salesforce, so employees can tell the recipe to run without logging into Workato.
Send Information Out Of An App
Another scenario where this is useful is monitoring a supply chain – you could have a business partner call upon the REST endpoint you created to track shipping or generate a report via a link on your internal website. You can embed this anywhere you want.
To manage the REST endpoints and the API tokens, go to “Service Catalog” under your username on the right hand corner of the screen. Here, you can easily test your REST endpoints and find the specific URL used to call the REST API. These screenshots will show you a more detailed view of REST API management: