Skip to content

Connect an outside system

Connectors are not finished yet

Connectors work end to end, but the configuration vocabulary is still developer-facing and the dry-run flow is being revised. Showcase marks Integrations as coming soon in the editor for that reason. The rest of Audience Integrations is generally available.

Use a connector when another system owns a list of people, members, exhibits, products, or media that should appear in Showcase. A connector saves how to read that source and where each field belongs in Showcase.

You do not need to write mapping JSON for the normal workflow.

Pick the outcome first

The connector wizard offers two starting goals:

  • People and Personal Folders — creates or updates people and their private folders. Use this for memberships, event registrations, CRM exports, and named visitors.
  • Content items — creates or updates material under a chosen Showcase content folder. Use this for catalogs, exhibits, products, schedules, and media metadata.

Guided connector mapping with source and destination fields

Example: import people from a CSV export

Suppose the source starts like this:

member_id,display_name,email_address,membership,home_city
M-1001,Ada Lovelace,ada@example.com,Gold,London
M-1002,Grace Hopper,grace@example.com,Silver,New York
  1. Open Integrations and select New connector.
  2. Give it a recognizable name such as membership-import.
  3. Under How data arrives, choose whether Showcase will fetch the source from a URL or the outside system will send it to Showcase. For a fetched source, enter its HTTPS URL and refresh interval.
  4. Under What do you want to create?, choose People and Personal Folders.
  5. Set Source format to CSV.
  6. Map:
  7. External ID → member_id
  8. Name → display_name
  9. Email → email_address
  10. If the source contains IDs of content owned by each person, map Owned content IDs field. This puts those Showcase items in that person's Personal Folder.
  11. Under additional details, add:
  12. membership from membership
  13. city from home_city
  14. Save the connector.
  15. Use Preview dry-run with a representative source file.
  16. Confirm the counts, destination, and field errors are correct.
  17. When the dry run is clean, run or send the source.
  18. Open Codice and confirm the expected people and Personal Folders exist.

The source's external ID lets later runs update the same person instead of creating duplicates. Showcase also records it as that person's external Codice alias, so approved event integrations can refer to the source ID without knowing the physical Codice number.

Example: import content into a Showcase folder

  1. Create or choose the destination folder in Showcase Content.
  2. Open Integrations → New connector.
  3. Choose Content items.
  4. Select JSON, XML, or CSV.
  5. For JSON or XML, enter the record path that contains the repeating records, such as catalog.items.
  6. Map the source ID and display name.
  7. Choose the Showcase destination folder by name.
  8. To create a folder/group per category, map Group/folder field to the relevant source field.
  9. Add any extra source-to-Showcase fields needed by the content design.
  10. Preview dry-run, correct any errors, then run.
  11. Open the destination content folder and inspect several imported items.

Source format tips

  • CSV: the first row must contain column names. Quoted values and commas are supported. A malformed or unterminated CSV is rejected and recorded as a failed run; it cannot erase the current snapshot.
  • JSON: use dot-separated paths for nested values. Confirm the repeating record path in Preview.
  • XML: map attributes and child values according to the labels shown by Preview.

Credentials for systems that push data

An administrator creates a named credential from the connector's Credentials section:

  1. Select Create credential.
  2. Enter a purpose and owner, such as Museum CMS production and Digital team.
  3. Create it and immediately copy or download the secret. Showcase displays it only once.
  4. Store it in the sending system's secret manager.

The credential list shows its owner, creation time, last use, and revoked state. For rotation, create a replacement, update and test the sending system, then revoke the old credential. This overlap prevents an avoidable outage.

Named connector credentials and run history

Preview dry-run and live import are different

  • Preview dry-run reads a representative payload and shows what would be created, updated, archived, or rejected without applying it.
  • A live pull run fetches and applies the configured source. A live push occurs when the outside system sends data using its named credential.
  • Run history records counts, warnings, and errors from applied imports.

Do not send or schedule a live source until its representative preview dry-run is clean.

Advanced mapping JSON

The wizard generates the parser and mapping documents used by the import engine. Advanced: raw JSON exposes them for unusual schemas and developer-led integrations. Keep it closed for standard people and content imports. If advanced JSON is edited, Preview and dry run are required again.

For endpoint-level details, see Push API reference and Pull connectors and Binder.