Update
The update event allows you to update or edit data in one of your data models. The update event is used in most software applications, for example, in social media platforms such as Facebook or Linkedin, users are able to edit posts. Most platforms also include a "system settings" page where users can edit their usernames, passwords, email address etc.
Whenever you want to give your users the ability to edit something, you will need to use the update endpoint, action & event.
In this tutorial we cover:
Setting up a UPDATE endpoint
Linking our UPDATE endpoint to an action
Updating multiple records in our data model
For the purpose of this example, we will use a data model that holds different social media posts for different users.
Our goal is to set up a PUT Endpoint that allows our users to update data records in our data model whenever the endpoint is triggered.
There are two ways to do this, we can either:
Use the API Generator, see API Generator, OR
Build the endpoint, action & event from scratch.
In this article we will cover how to build the endpoint, action & event from scratch.
Setting up a PUT Endpoint
In this section we are going to create a PUT Endpoint manually to update a single record in our Posts Data Model. To do this, head on over to the endpoints tab & press the "+ New Endpoint" button to create a new endpoint.
Next, we fill in the basic details for our endpoint as below.
Note, our Path parameter has the extension {id}. This is going to be used to identify which record in our Posts Data Model we are going to update.
The id is what is called a "Path Variable". Essentially, the part of our URL that is in curly braces is just a placeholder for a dynamic, or variable value.
Ditto Tip: the reason that we use the id is twofold. First, the id field is automatically added by Dittofi to every row of data inside your data model. Second, the Id value is auto incrementing and therefore is a unique identifier for all rows in your Data Model.
The value of the placeholder or variable "id" can be set inside the Path Variables section of our endpoint.
Note that the in the variable settings, we pick the Kind, Number and give the same name and label as the value inside the curly braces in our Endpoint Path, "id", as below.
The reason we pick the Kind Number is that the id is a number field in our Posts Data Model. The name of our Path Variable also needs to match both in spelling and capitalization of the id inside the curly braces of our Endpoint Path.
Next, we need configure our endpoint to receive data that we want to update inside our Posts Data Model. For example, let's suppose we want to allow the user to edit their Post Caption.
To do this, we can use the Body Variable option in the following way.
Notice, the Kind we are using here is Model. This configures our endpoint to receive data for every field in our Posts Data Model. If we want to configure our endpoint to receive only the data for one field in our Data Model, we would need to use a Custom Model.
The last step is to save and close our endpoint.
Linking our PUT Endpoint to an action
Next, we need to link our Update social media posts endpoint to an action. To do this, we start by heading over to the actions tab & pressing "+ New Action".
Next we give our action a name, call it "Update social media post".
Next, we link our Update Social Media Post action to our endpoint.
Next, we need to look up the record in the Posts Data Model (the social media post) that we want to update. To do this, we begin by adding a variable of Kind Model to our action called "PostToUpdate". The model we use is our Social Media Posts Model.
Our variable is going to store just one record, so we need to add a custom filter. To do this, use the Where clause in the "New Variables" browser, as below.
Notice, that we filter according to the id that is passed into our Update Social Media Posts Action. This value, as we saw in the previous section is variable.
Next we add an Update Event to our actions and events graph by clicking on the "+ Add Event" button.
Using the panel on the right hand side of the screen, we can then choose our event type and configure our event. The table below describes what each of the configuration options does.
| Configuration Option | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
Action Type | Describes the type of event that you want to use. | Update |
Description | Type in a description of the event | Update the Post Caption for a single social media posts record identified by "id". |
Type | Model | |
Object | This is the record that you're looking to update. This was filtered for by id. | PostToUpdate Model taken from your Action. |
Assign | Choose which fields you want to assign which values from your data model. | PostDataToUpdate.PostCaption This value is taken from the body variable passed to your Action by your Endpoint. |
Variables | This option allows you to declare a new variable inside your event. This variable will be available inside your event and for all subsequent events. | In our example this is not needed, however you could for example create a static text expressed. |
The final configuration for our event looks like the screenshot below.
Testing Our PUT Endpoint, Action & Event
To test our PUT Endpoint, Action & Event, we need to (A) generate the code, (B) test our endpoint from within the endpoints tab by adding in some dummy data, (C) check our endpoint response code & (D) look at our Posts Data Model to see if the record have been updated. The video below shows this process in action.
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