You can purchase access to webhooks as a separate solution added on top of your Contractbook Foundation plan. It will allow you to integrate almost every possible tool to Contractbook, with several small exceptions. 

If you need more technical documentation regarding the use of webhooks and public APIs, click here.

How to set up a webhook trigger? 

All workflows using webhooks will start in response to a trigger. To trigger a workflow using a webhook, you need to configure the webhook which will start your workflow in Contractbook when an event you specify occurs in another application. 

Webhook request is received trigger allows you to trigger the automation from the outside by making an HTTP POST request to the URL generated by that trigger and map the data coming from the request’s payload to the named variables that can be used in the subsequent actions.

Receive Webhook requests (and use them as a Trigger)

Choose Automations from the top main menu in Contractbook app and click on Create new button.

Then select Webhook request is received from the drop-down list of available trigger options for the automation setup:

Then proceed with the Automation action configuration in the window which will automatically open on the right-hand side of the screen:

• You can generate a unique URL to which other services can make POST requests
• You can then specify the paths to the fields in the data payload and assign specific variable names to them

How to configure your webhook trigger in the Automation Builder?

The external service you choose to create and configure your webhook needs to provide you with the ability to make an HTTP POST request to Contractbook as soon as a certain event occurs.

Contractbook will generate a unique request URL for your workflow in the trigger event of the automation setup, and you can simply copy the generic URL and paste it in the external service (or tool) with which you want to integrate Contractbook.

You can then configure your webhook to give information to Contractbook via HTTP type of request. Any data your webhook sends to Contractbook can be referred to in the following workflow steps by constructing variables.

Create custom variables

To create a custom variable, you have to add a key-value pair in the in-app Automation Builder as a text-based variable. 

You can define your own variables to use in subsequent actions based on the data that you send together with your webhook requests. To do that, you have to specify the label of the variable and the path to the field in the data payload whose value should be assigned to that variable. Specify paths using the object dot notation (for example object1.object2,array[0].field).

Get your web request URL 

The automation starts when an HTTP request to the given URL is received.

Request URLs start with https://api.contractbook.com/automations/webhooks/contractbook/ and are followed by a randomized string of characters.

Be sure to keep your request URL secure, as anyone with the link will have the ability to trigger your workflow.

Regenerate a webhook URL

If a webhook’s URL gets exposed or needs to be changed for any reason, follow the steps below: 

How to set up a webhook action? 

Send a webhook request action allows you to call a URL from the third party application (service) of your choice with a given data payload and additional headers like authorization tokens and more. This basically allows you to automatically call a third-party app with a specific URL and a data payload of your preference.

As a trigger event in this case, you are free to choose any of the available in the Automation Builder trigger events, such as a contract is fully signed, a draft is created, a draft is updated, a questionnaire is completed. 

Send a webhook request (and use it as an Action)

You need to start off with the URL to call which can be found in the external third-party app which you want to integrate with. 

Insert the relevant data in this first field and then proceed with the following configuration fields. 

Use the Data payload section of the setup to add the field path and value and this way specify the payload which will be sent along with the HTTP request.

The final customization in this step of the configuration will be to specify headers that should be sent with the HTTP request. The default value for Content-Type  header is application/json, but we also support application/x-www-fowm-urlencoded. In order to use it, you have to specify that header explicitly.

• Will always be POST requests
• Dynamic values from contracts can be sent in the webhook payload
• HTTP headers can be added as well (for Authorization and Content-Type)
• The default Content-Type is application/JSON, nevertheless, we do also support application/x-www-form-url encoded if that is being specified in the header instead

Note: Keep in mind that both webhook trigger and action can be combined with any other document-related Automation Builder triggers, such as draft created, draft updated, contract signed, filters, task actions, questionnaire completed, and others. This allows you to completely customize the workflow you want to achieve and to create even more powerful automations.

How to test webhook triggers in the Automation Builder?

If you want to test Webhook triggers you do not have to specify any paths to fields, you can instead simply publish the automation without specifying any fields. The payload of any requests made can be seen in the automation history.