We have released a new feature to the platform called Data sources. With it, you are able to create connections to data resources in systems outside the Betty Blocks platform and seamlessly integrate data to enrich the information in your Betty Blocks Applications. All without synchronizing the data and ending up with multiple datasets of the same source.
In almost any enterprise, there are many systems and data already in place. In order to create business opportunities or to solve business problems, you'll have to build many solutions on top of those existing data sources. That is where this new feature helps you out! It allows you to integrate with those systems to enrich your Betty Blocks Applications without synchronizing the data in multiple places.
Betty Blocks Application on top of existing SAP Bill of Material data.
In the Data model IDE, there is a new Data sources section on the right. With this, you can create and manage your Data source entities. One Data source can contain one or multiple remote models. These models are similar to regular models and contain the data structure of tables defined in the remote source.
Data model IDE with the new Data sources section on the right.
Every remote model gets five auto-generated actions which will function as API (CRUD) endpoints to connect with the Data source in runtime. Here, we also offer maximum flexibility through custom code in order to connect with almost any Data source. Next to the native Application functions Betty Blocks is offering, you are able to publish self-defined functions that suit your use-cases.
Five auto-generated actions for CRUD operations of the remote model data.
Self-defined Application functions are ending up in the Action's sidebar as available steps to use on the canvas. In this example below, you see a self-defined SAP Data function available in the sidebar and also configured as a step on the canvas. It designed to fetch all the data from the SAP remote source and to return the result back to the requested Page builder page.
The action designed to fetch data from the remote source by a self-defined Application function.
You can use remote models similar to regular models in the Page builder to display data from the source in Betty Blocks Applications. You can use our default component set to render data from the source on your Pages.
Compose your Pages that displays remote model data with our default component set.
After you have designed your user interface in the Page Builder, the only thing left is clicking play to run the Application. Easy, simple, fast, and with a flexible action layer so you never get stuck.
Check out the mini-tour that you get posted while opening an Application in design-time where we walk you through the new feature. Or check out the documentation page here to get started.
This new feature is currently only available on the Betty Blocks NL3, NL4 shared clusters. In the upcoming period we will enable this feature to all shared and private clusters besides NL1 and US1.
That was all for now, your feedback allows us to continuously improve our product. Please let us know what you think about it. Happy building! 😃