Purpose

This Enterprise Service Bus system allows a Software Developer to setup synchronization of the Contacts from a Google Gmail Account with records in WorkXpress. Typically a Software Developer will create a Contact, or Person table that contains records that are in a 1 to 1 relationship with the Contacts in a Google Gmail Account. Because Google Contacts can have multiple Addresses, Phone Numbers and Email Addresses, the Software Developer will also create tables that represent each of these records as well. Together these tables will represent a single Google Gmail Contact Record.

Note: This integration does not work with Contacts in Google+ Circles only Gmail Contacts.

End User Experience

A User of a WorkXpress Application that utilizes the Google Contacts Enterprise Service Bus functionality will need to authorize this application to allow interaction with Gmail Contacts.

Google Login

The User needs to log in to their Google Account on their WorkXpress User Record so their Google Gmail contacts can be read from and written to. They do this using the 'Google Login' field on the User Table. This field allows the user to log in to their Google Account without their Google username or password being stored in the WorkXpress Application. When the log in process is completed the 'Google Login' Field will display what Google Account the end user is logged in as, allow them to log out from that account, and log in on a different account.

Note: Each User can only be logged into one Google Account at a time.

Receiving Contacts from Google Gmail

If a Google Contacts Data Source ESB Profile is configured, then the application will look for Contacts to update every 5 minutes.

Note: It could take up to 5 minutes for a User to see his or her contacts in the WorkXpress Application because of this update interval.

Sending Events to Google Contacts

Sending Contacts from WorkXpress to Google Gmail is a two step process. First, the Software Developer must setup a Google Contacts Outgoing ESB Profile to let WorkXpress know how to interpret Contact records to send to Google. Second, Enterprise Service Bus Actions need to be added to the Table being synced so that when a User adds or edits a Contact in the WorkXpress application those changes will be pushed to Google.

It is possible that changes can occur in both WorkXpress and Google Gmail at or near the same time. In those cases the setting on the outgoing ESB will determine if the data from Google Gmail overwrites the WorkXpress changes or if the data from WorkXpress overwrites the Google Gmail changes.

What Data is synced between Google and WorkXpress?

The following pieces of data are available to sync:

  • Google Contact ID - The Google Contact ID identifies this Contact on Google's side. This Contact ID must be stored in order to match your records to their Contacts for updating purposes. If this Contact ID is not stored any changes in Google Gmail Contacts will create new Contacts in the WorkXpress application and changes in WorkXpress can not be pushed to Google.
  • Google ETag - The Google ETag is a Contact Version identifier and must be stored to avoid data conflict issues.
  • First Name - The Contact's first name.
  • Last Name - The Contact's last name.
  • Middle Name - The Contact's middle name.
  • Name Prefix - The Contact's name prefix such as Dr, Mr, Mrs.
  • Name Suffix - The Contact's name suffix such as Jr, Sr, Esq.
  • Description - A description of the Contact.
  • Company - The company associated with this Contact.
  • Job Title - The Job title for this Contact.
  • Email Addresses - The Email Addresses for this Contact and their types:
    • Address - The email address
    • Type - Home, Work, Other
  • Phone Numbers - The Phone Numbers for this Contact and their types:
    • Number - The full phone number
    • Type - Home, Home Fax, Mobile, Main, Pager, Work, Work Fax, Google Voice, Other
  • Addresses - The Addresses for this Contact and their types
    • Street - The street portion of the address
    • City - The city portion of the address
    • State / Province - The state / province of the address
    • ZIP / Postal Code - The zip or postal code of the address
    • Country - The country of the address
    • Type - Home, Work, Other

If any of these values are not configured to be stored in the WorkXpress application and returned to Google then when WorkXpress updates Google the values will be cleared on Google's side. Even if the values are not going to be displayed it is highly recommended that all of these values be stored and returned to Google.

The following piece of data is not part of the sync and will only be managed via Google's Gmail Contacts interface:

  • Contact Picture

Data Sources

The data source selection for an Incoming ESB Profile will determine what helpers and configuration is needed and or available.

Data Handlers

The data handler selection for an Outgoing ESB Profile will determine what helpers and configuration is needed and or available.

enterprise service bus - google contacts.txt · Last modified: 2016/09/14 18:19 (external edit)
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