Step by Step Guide to Building a Bigin API Integration in Ruby

Aug 14, 2024 • 5 minute read

Introduction

Hey there, fellow Ruby enthusiast! Ready to dive into the world of Bigin API integration? You're in for a treat. Bigin, Zoho's CRM for small businesses, offers a robust API that we'll be tapping into. By the end of this guide, you'll have a solid integration up and running. Let's get cracking!

Prerequisites

Before we jump in, make sure you've got:

Ruby 2.7+ installed
The httparty and dotenv gems
Your Bigin API credentials (if you don't have these, hop over to the Bigin developer portal and grab 'em)

Setting up the project

First things first, let's get our project set up:

mkdir bigin_integration
cd bigin_integration
bundle init

Now, add these lines to your Gemfile:

gem 'httparty'
gem 'dotenv'

Run bundle install, and we're off to the races!

Authentication

Bigin uses OAuth 2.0, so let's handle that:

require 'httparty'
require 'dotenv/load'

class BiginClient
  include HTTParty
  base_uri 'https://www.zohoapis.com/bigin/v1'

  def initialize
    @options = {
      headers: {
        'Authorization' => "Zoho-oauthtoken #{access_token}",
        'Content-Type' => 'application/json'
      }
    }
  end

  private

  def access_token
    # Implement token fetching and refreshing logic here
  end
end

Pro tip: Store your credentials in a .env file and use the dotenv gem to load them. Your future self will thank you!

Making API requests

Now for the fun part - let's start making some requests:

class BiginClient
  # ... previous code ...

  def get_contacts
    self.class.get('/Contacts', @options)
  end

  def create_contact(contact_data)
    self.class.post('/Contacts', @options.merge(body: contact_data.to_json))
  end

  # Add more methods for other endpoints
end

Handling responses

Bigin returns JSON responses. Let's parse them and handle any errors:

def handle_response(response)
  case response.code
  when 200..299
    JSON.parse(response.body)
  else
    raise "API error: #{response.code} - #{response.message}"
  end
end

Implementing key Bigin API features

Let's put it all together and implement some key features:

client = BiginClient.new

# Get all contacts
contacts = client.get_contacts
puts contacts

# Create a new contact
new_contact = {
  'First_Name' => 'John',
  'Last_Name' => 'Doe',
  'Email' => '[email protected]'
}
result = client.create_contact(new_contact)
puts result

Best practices

Remember to:

Respect rate limits (Bigin has a limit of 25 requests per second)
Implement pagination for large datasets
Log API interactions for debugging

Testing the integration

Don't forget to test! Here's a quick example using RSpec:

RSpec.describe BiginClient do
  it 'fetches contacts successfully' do
    client = BiginClient.new
    response = client.get_contacts
    expect(response).to be_a(Hash)
    expect(response['data']).to be_an(Array)
  end
end

Conclusion

And there you have it! You've just built a Bigin API integration in Ruby. Pretty cool, right? From here, you can expand on this foundation to implement more complex features and really make your integration sing.

Resources

For more info, check out:

Now go forth and integrate! Happy coding!