Add Customer Information to kintone Automatically with No Code

Hi there

In the 3-part article Creating a Seminar Reception System with No Code (episodes 1, 2 and 3) I showed you how to build a system that accepts seminar applications and sends registration emails and reminder emails to applicants. In this article, I will show you how to automatically add seminar applicant’s information to the kintone cloud database.

The seminar reception system is built using Questetra BPM Suite, a cloud-based no-code development platform. Questetra BPM Suite comes standard with items to add records to kintone (*), so users can build a system that works with kintone without requiring programming knowledge.

* When the edition is Advanced or Professional

What we want to achieve

We will add the information of the seminar applicant to the app (a container that stores data) made in kintone, but more specifically, it is as follows.

In the article Building a Seminar Reception System with No-Code, we built a system in which the following processes are executed in Questetra BPM Suite.

1. Applications are accepted for seminar participation.
2. A member of the seminar team will review the received information and accept the application if it is not inappropriate (competitive, anti-social, etc.)
3. An acceptance email will be sent to the applicant.
4. A reminder email will be sent to the applicant (when the seminar date is approaching).
5. After the seminar, a member of the seminar team will check the participation.
6. An email will be sent to seminar participants requesting them to complete a survey.
7. Seminar participants answer the questionnaire.

The eighth process that I want to achieve in this article is that the seminar attendee information will be added to kintone. After the seminar attendee answers the questionnaire, the name and email address of the seminar attendee will be added to the kintone app as a single record.

Now, let’s proceed with the settings for kintone and Questetra BPM Suite.

Setting up kintone

kintone Settings 1: Create the Seminar Applicant Database app

In kintone, we will create an app to store the seminar applicant information received from Questetra BPM Suite. The fields to be added are as follows: Field Name / Field Code / Field Type）

• Name / name / String (single line)
• Company name / company_name / String (single line)
• Email address / email / String (single line)
• Phone number / telephone_number / String (single line)
• Seminar date / workshop_date / Date
• Seminar participation record / is_participation / Select (radio button)
• Record number / record_number / (omitted)
• Creation date / (omitted) / (omitted)

Field codes are also used in Questetra BPM Suite settings, so they must be set accurately.

kintone Settings 2: Obtaining an API Token

You will need to obtain an API token to access your kintone app from other systems. Follow the steps below to obtain it.

1. Click the «App Settings» tab in the seminar applicant database
2. Click «API Token»
3. Click the «Generate» button to generate an API token
4. You will see an alphanumeric value (API token) of about 40 characters

In the image, the value in 4 is set to «exampleEXAMPLE…», but in reality the API token will be displayed here. This API token will be used later in the Questetra BPM Suite settings. Also, don’t forget to check the «Add Record» checkbox for the access rights of the API token.

Once the settings are saved by clicking «Save» in the upper left corner of the settings screen you are ready to go in kintone.

Setting up Questetra BPM Suite

Questetra Settings 1: Modify Workflow Diagram

We will proceed with adding functions to the seminar system created in Creating a Seminar Reception System with No Code Part 3.

Creating a Seminar Reception System with No Code Part 3

First we will modify the workflow diagram. We will place an item where a record will be added to kintone after a seminar attendee answers a questionnaire. Specifically, we will change the workflow diagram to look like the following diagram.

Insert an item to add a record to kintone (kintone: Add New Record) between the round item indicating the end of the workflow and the diamond (◇) item to its left. This workflow diagram change is now complete.

At this point there will be an error because the settings of the item for adding a record to kintone are incomplete, but this error will be resolved later.

Questetra Settings 2: Adding Data Items

Next, we will add a String-type (single line) Data Item named «kintone Record ID».

In order to distinguish each record, kintone uses a record number. The record number is automatically generated every time a record is added to kintone. This value is used for updating and deleting records, so we will add a Data Item called «kintone Record ID» in order to keep it in Questetra BPM Suite.

Questetra Settings 3: HTTP Authentication settings

Configure the authentication settings to access kintone.

1. Click [Apps] > [HTTP Authentication Settings] on the Workflow App details screen.
2. On the screen that appears, click the «Add» button.
3. Select «Token Fixed Value» from the drop-down menu at the top. (The input field will change depending on what is selected.)
4. In the Name field enter «X-Cybozu-API-Token», and in the Token field enter the API token obtained from kintone: Get API Token.

Once you have entered this information, click the «Save» button to complete the settings.

Questetra Settings 4: Settings to add records to kintone

Return to the Workflow Diagram edit screen. Set it up so that records will be added to kintone with the items added in the section Questetra: Modify Workflow Diagram

The settings for this item can be broadly divided into communication-related and data-related.

C1 to C5 are related to communication, and each of them will be explained briefly.

• C1: Authorization Setting in which API Token is set 
  • Select «X-Cybozu-API-Token» that you set in Section 3.2.2, Questetra: HTTP Authentication Settings
• C2: Basic Auth Settings (required if enabled on kintone)
  • Not used in this article.
• C3: Domain (such as xxxxxx.kintone.com or xxxxx.cybozu.com)
  • Enter the kintone domain you are using.
• C4: Guest space ID (required if the App is in a Guest Space)
  • Not used in this article.
• C5: App ID
  • Enter the ID of the app that you created in Section 3.2, «Creating a Seminar Applicant Database App». To check the app ID, see the URL of the kintone app setting page. The ID is the number following app=

Next, let’s talk about data-related items. This determines which Data Item value in Questetra BPM Suite will be stored in which field in kintone.

• C6: String-type Data Item that will save Record ID
  • Specify the Data Item «kintone Record ID» that you added in the section Questetra: Adding Data Items.
• CxF, CxV
  • x can be any value between 7 and 13. CxF and CxV are a pair, where CxF is the field code of the kintone field and CxV is the value to be set in the field. In this article, CxV is the field name of the Data Item in Questetra BPM Suite to be input.

Once you have done this you are ready to go.

Operation Check

Check 1: Publish kintone app and release Questetra app

Once the settings for both the kintone app and the Questetra BPM Suite App (both are called apps, which is a bit confusing) are complete, you will need to activate the settings (to make them available).

• Publish your kintone app
  • Click the [Publish App] button in the upper right corner of the app setting screen.
• Release Questetra BPM Suite App
  • Click the [Release developing Version #] button on the Workflow Diagram in the App Details screen.
  • Please refer to the manual as well.

Check 2: A record is added to kintone

You can apply with temporary data from the seminar application form in Questetra BPM Suite and handle all the subsequent processes.

To make it easier to check the operation, you can temporarily set the seminar date in the past. This way, the reminder email will be sent immediately without stopping at the Timer Event to wait until 3 days before the seminar.

Once the participants have answered the questionnaire, the information held in Questetra BPM Suite will be sent to kintone. If the settings are correct, the record will be added to the kintone app as shown in the following image.

When a record is added to kintone, a record number is automatically assigned. If you look at the above figure, you can see that this record number is imported into Questetra BPM Suite.

Summary

I introduced how to add a record to a kintone app by placing an item in a Questetra BPM Suite workflow diagram and making some simple settings. In addition, I introduced a way to achieve this without using code, just with settings.

By using this item, you can easily consolidate data handled by multiple workflow Apps into a kintone app. For example, customer information is handled not only in the Seminar Reception Process, but also in the process of requesting information and responding to inquiries about the trial version. In this way, you can build a system to consolidate customer information that is handled by different operations into a single kintone «customer database» app.

Questetra BPM Suite has the following features, in addition to adding records to kintone apps:

• Updating a Record
• Deleting a Record
• Retrieve Record

If you are currently using kintone and want to achieve a high level of automation, please apply for a free trial of Questetra BPM Suite.

The seminar reception system that works with kintone introduced here can be easily imported into the Questetra BPM Suite platform that you are using. All you have to do is download the necessary files on the following page and import them. You can also download the application templates that you need to prepare on the kintone side. Please consider using these as well.

Seminar Registration 4

That’s all for now!