Airplane

You can use Sequin to build Airplane apps on top of APIs like Salesforce and HubSpot. Sequin will sync your API data to a Postgres database so you can write your integration in SQL. Changes you make to your database records will be applied to the API and your database at the same time.

While Airplane has connectors for some APIs, it’s much faster to build with Airplane’s Postgres adapter. You don’t have to worry about rate limits and SQL is both familiar and expressive.

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Setup a Sequin sync

Before you can use Sequin with Airplane, you’ll need to create a sync. Sequin will guide you through authenticating, selecting the data you want to sync, and connecting to your database. Read our getting started guide for step-by-step instructions.

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Create an Airplane resource

A resource in Airplane is a connection to a database or API.

Sequin uses a Postgres Proxy to interface with your Sequin-synced tables. The Proxy lets Sequin capture inserts, updates, and deletes you make in your database and commit them to the API.

To add Sequin’s Postgres Proxy as an Airplane resource, you can treat it as a regular Postgres resource and enter the connection details in the resource configuration:

Step 1: Go to your Airplane dashboard and click the databases icon labeled “Resources.” Click the ”+” icon in the environment where you want to create the resource.

Step 2: Select PostgreSQL.

Step 3: This opens up the “Create new resource” slide-out. Give the connection a name (like “salesforce-sequin”) and paste the values for host, database name, database username, and database password from the Connection instructions tab of your Sequin dashboard.

Step 4: Click “Test connection” to ensure it’s working, then click “Save.”

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Using the Postgres resource in Airplane

Now, Sequin is syncing your API data to Postgres. You’ve also connected Airplane to Postgres via Sequin’s Proxy.

To query this data in your Airplane app, first create a new task:

Step 1: Open the “File browser” by clicking the computer icon on the left rail. Click the ”+” button and select “Task.”

Step 2: Select “SQL”, give the task a name, and click “Create.” This will create two files: the task definition (ending in .task.yaml) and the SQL query associated with the task (ending in .sql).

Step 3: Write your SQL query. For example, here’s a Salesforce query that finds all the Salesforce Contacts belonging to a given account:

-- in list_account_contacts.sql
select * from salesforce.contact
where account_id = :account_id
limit 100;

Note this query uses a parameter, :account_id. You can bind a task parameter to :account_id in the task definition:

# in list_account_contacts.task.yaml
parameters:
  - slug: account_id
    name: Account ID
    type: shorttext
    required: true
sql:
  queryArgs:
    account_id: "{{params.account_id}}"

To run this task, you’ll supply an account_id as the argument. As a test, you can run a task at any time by selecting it in the file browser (tasks have the lightning bolt icon).

Once your tasks are ready, you can create React components that interface with them. You can create a new view from scratch by clicking the ”+” button in the file browser. Or you can start with one of Airplane’s many templates.

For example, to populate Airplane’s Table React component with the results of a task, you set the table’s task property to the slug of the task:

<Table
  id="contacts"
  title="Contacts"
  columns={contactsCols}
  // specify the task slug that populates the table here
  task="list_account_contacts"
  rowSelection="single"
  defaultPageSize={5}
/>

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Writing back to the API

With Sequin, you can also make mutations via your database as well. Inserts, updates, and deletes you make to Sequin-synced tables are first applied to the API. If they pass validation, they’re committed to your database.

To write your first mutation query, create another task.

You can compose an insert query by populating values with various input fields in your application. Assuming the task binds parameters such as :first_name and :last_name, here’s what inserting to a Salesforce Contact table would look like:

-- insert_contact.sql
insert into salesforce.contact (first_name, last_name, email)
values (:first_name, :last_name, :email);

Continuing this example, you can create a basic form using the Form component:

// admin_dashboard.airplane.tsx
const Dashboard = () => {
  // ...
  return (
    // ...
    <Form
      id={formId}
      onSubmit={(values) => {
        mutate();
      }}
    >
      <TextInput id="first_name" label="First name" />
      <TextInput id="last_name" label="Last name" />
      <TextInput id="email" label="Email" />
    </Form>
  );
};

The form will invoke mutate when the user clicks “Submit.” You can define your mutate function at the top of the component:

// admin_dashboard.airplane.tsx
const Dashboard = () => {
  const { id: formId, values } = useComponentState("contact_form");
  const { mutate } = useTaskMutation({
    // this is the slug of the task to run
    slug: "create_contact",
    // passing in all the values of the form to the task
    params: { num_times: 1, ...values },
    onSuccess: () => {
      showNotification({ message: "Contact created", type: "success" });
    },
  });
  // ...
};

This will render a form with three inputs that your users can use to create contacts in Salesforce:

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Errors

When Sequin’s Proxy encounters an error trying to apply your mutation in the upstream API, the Proxy returns a standard Postgres error. You can setup your app to display this as an alert notification.

If you’re using the mutate function, you can add an onError callback like this:

const { mutate } = useTaskMutation({
  // ...
  onError: (out, error) => {
    const msg = <p>Error creating contact: <code>{JSON.stringify(error)</code>}</p>
    showNotification({ message: msg, type: "error" });
  }
})

Now, if a user attempts to perform an insert and it fails, they’ll see the validation error that was returned by Salesforce:

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Next steps

You can now use Airplane to build on top of sources like Salesforce, Airtable, and HubSpot. If you have any questions, please reach out to us.