WordCamp Miami 2017 Presentation - How we use the REST API at Actionable.co.

1. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
REST API Case Study:
Actionable.co
WordCamp Miami 2017
Shawn Hooper
Director of IT, actionable.co

2. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Good Afternoon!
I’m Shawn Hooper, the Director of IT at
Actionable.co
Being a distributed company, everything we do is
in the cloud….
Actionable

3. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Our core offering is the Actionable
Conversations platform. (NodeJS)
Actionable

4. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Our core offering is the Actionable
Conversations platform. (NodeJS)
We also have 3 public-facing websites marketing
to different audiences (all WordPress).
Actionable

5. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Our core offering is the Actionable
Conversations platform. (NodeJS)
We also have 3 public-facing websites marketing
to different audiences (all WordPress).
Our Intranet is also a WordPress site.
Actionable

6. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
We also use many 3rd party services w/ APIs:
Teachable (Online Courses)
Infusionsoft (CRM)
Zoom (Webinars & Conference Calls)
G Suite (Google Apps)
Xero (Accounting)
BambooHR (HR Management)
…. and many more
Actionable

7. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
How we use the REST API…

8. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
To Manage Content…

9. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Actionable Conversations
Learning & Development Platform
Developed in NodeJS
Our learning modules are content.
Used the WP REST API to retrieve modules &
avoid making a custom CMS.
Why re-invent the wheel…

10. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Modified ‘module’ Custom Post Type endpoint
to return required meta fields with the
register_rest_field() function.
Why re-invent the wheel…

11. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Modified ‘module’ Custom Post Type endpoint
to return required meta fields with the
register_rest_field() function.
Wrote a plugin that added WPML information to
this post type, showing current locale, and the
locale, post ID and permalink to other available
languages.
Why re-invent the wheel…

12. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Linking Between Blogs

13. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
We have three public facing websites with blogs.
Using the REST API, we retrieve the most recent
post from each blog and display them in a widget
on all the sites.
/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?per_page=1
(Cached for 24 hours)
Linking Between Blogs

14. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
We no longer use admin-ajax.php to handle AJAX
requests, but REST endpoints instead.
- Better Documented ( wp-json/ )
- Code re-use from other sites and apps
(Example: Looking up valid email address)
Goodbye admin-ajax.php

15. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
To Optimize…

16. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Clearing the Cache

17. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Clearing the Cache
The data about our consultant network is
maintained in one of our internal databases.
The page is populated using a shortcode.
This is slow.
So I cached it. Forever.

18. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Clearing the Cache
Clear the cache only on data change

19. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
To Automate…

20. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Problem:
An employee’s manager & HR need to know when a
new team member completes their on boarding
courses in Teachable.
Solution:
Use REST API to accept web hooks from Teachable
and then interface with Slack and our HRMS.
Teachable Webhooks

21. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
When an opportunity is marked as Closed-Won in
Infusionsoft, we automatically create a record in
our accounting software using the WP REST API.
Infusionsoft -> Xero

22. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
Problem:
User Management of Several Websites
without Multisite
Solution:
Use REST API to remotely create user accounts
from an admin page on our Intranet.
Bulk User Creation

23. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
POST /wp/v2/users/
combined with Google Apps Login plugin.
Bulk User Creation

24. Blog - shawnhooper.ca
Twitter - @shawnhooper
You can find these slides, notes and more at
shawnhooper.ca
Tweet Me @shawnhooper
WordPress Slack: shooper
Thank You!