XF 2.3 Automate workflows with webhooks

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In what is probably one of the worst kept secrets in XenForo 'Have you seen...?' history, the eagle eyed amongst you may have picked up on one or two... or three... clues that we may be talking about this soon, and the day has finally arrived! Today we're excited to show you our take on the highly requested webhook implementation in XenForo.

For those of you who haven't heard of webhooks before, they are a powerful utility that allow one application or service to send information to another when certain events occur. These can be everyday actions such as when making a payment for access to a product or service, or more specific implementations such as having a new Thread from your forum posted to Discord automatically.

It is likely that even if you're not a developer type person then you have utilised or encountered webhooks in one way or another at some point without realizing.

Here at XenForo, we automate a lot of our workflow using webhooks, some of which may be obvious, others less so. For example, we receive a webhook from GitHub every time that we fix a bug report - this is what automatically marks bug reports as fixed. Another example, is we send a webhook to Slack every time someone posts a bug report or reports content.

Webhooks as a general concept, can be a very flexible tool with an endless amount of use cases, the ability to send webhooks whenever certain events occur on your forum to another system is going to be something you can take advantage of starting with XenForo 2.3.

Now while webhooks may appear on the surface to be something targeted towards developers, there are a number of fantastic third party automation services which are capable of receiving webhooks and triggering actions. These services, such as IFTTT, Make, and Zapier, offer a convenient and user friendly way to automate and integrate applications within your website with thousands of integrations already available.

Closer integration with one or more of these services is being considered for a future release, but all three of the above examples do accept webhooks as a trigger.

As ever, there's a lot to talk about in this one so feel free to jump to a specific section below:

• Configuring XenForo to send webhooks
• A real world webhook example

We're excited to hear what you think about webhooks coming to XenForo and what kind of use cases you'll be exploring. Let us know below.

Have you had enough yet? We haven't. There's more to come next week!

 

[Suzanne O]

Some automation I would love to see are populating XenForo when external content becomes available. For example :

IF a specific YouTube channel publishes a new video THEN post it to XenForo media gallery.

IF a new study about a specific topic is published on reseatchgate or pubmed THEN post it to XenForo resource manager.

These are just a few examples but you get the gist. If an external source offers content as well as api / webhooks to get it OR if an intermediate application exists to fetch that content, then it would be really useful to be able to pull it into xenforo and addon content.

@Chris D could you please share your thoughts on this topic?

Did you used to have a vBulletin board?
webhooks acts like it's product and hook section.
It's for things such as your x.com tweet box where it automatically loads that box and picks up your tweets.
you can add things like shoutboxes, bloggers, and arcades on it as well. It's pretty cool.

 

[Jake B.]

Did you used to have a vBulletin board?
webhooks acts like it's product and hook section.
It's for things such as your x.com tweet box where it automatically loads that box and picks up your tweets.
you can add things like shoutboxes, bloggers, and arcades on it as well. It's pretty cool.

Those are not webhooks, vbulletin products and hooks are comparable to XenForo's add-on system

 

[Andy.N]

I want to be able to. Can someone say yes?
1) When someone posts a review on the resource page, I will be able to automatically post that review on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc).
2) When someone submits an entry on a Wordpress form, it will create a post on a specific thread depending on some filters on the form.
3) When someone signs up and visits a specific page/forum/thread, it will automatically generate an email or PM.

I'm very excited for the possibilities to further integrate with XF and Zapier.

 

[Kirby]

I want to be able to. Can someone say yes?
1) When someone posts a review on the resource page, I will be able to automatically post that review on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc).

Not without an intermediate service that accepts the XenForo webhook and creates the social media post based on the received data.

2) When someone submits an entry on a Wordpress form, it will create a post on a specific thread depending on some filters on the form.

If the form can trigger a webhook:
Not without an intermediate service that accepts the WordPress webhook and issues a XenForo API call to create the post.
If it can't trigger a webhook: No.

3) When someone signs up and visits a specific page/forum/thread, it will automatically generate an email or PM.

I am not sure if there will be an event for "visits a specific page/thread/forum".

Assuming that such an event will be available:
Not without an intermediate service that accepts the XenForo webhook and issues a XenForo API call to create a conversation / direct message.

 

[Kintaro]

Not without an intermediate service that accepts the XenForo webhook and issues a XenForo API call to create a conversation / direct message.

as is all internal: or an internal function that will create a pm or send an email

 

[Miri]

Not without an intermediate service that accepts the XenForo webhook and creates the social media post based on the received data.

I used IFTTT with Xenforo's RSS feeds, and it worked perfectly for posting content on social platforms. I initially thought that the reviews were somehow being extracted through the RSS feeds. However, after reading your post, I decided to conduct a test (not that I don't trust your knowledge, just to be clear ) and indeed, the reviews are also excluded from the RSS feed.

 

[Kintaro]

the reviews are also excluded from the RSS feed.

There are services (and maybe local scripts?) that create rss from page. Other ways you need an addon.

 

[Mark87]

I guess I am the dummy in the room but not sure how this really helps the nondeveloper admin/owner who just wants his forum to run smooth etc, in other words can someone do a webhooks for dummies post as to how this would help my forum?

 

[Alpha1]

It seems to me that webhooks are a nice building block of technology, that (similar to API) will hopefully be used to create awesome stuff for admins, but is currently only useful if you want to send stuff to Zapier without blowing the bank on Zapier plans.

Quite some nice things could be created with this. Hopefully the XF team is planning some cools stuff.

How cool would it be if we could use external sites and services to easily populate our websites with interesting content. If you have a calendar on your site, then automatically fill it with popular events. I'd love to automatically populate RMS with products and services. XFMG with videos from relevant YouTube channels. XFRM with PDF's that my users would find interesting. Etc.
That would require an intuitive interface to map external data to XenForo targets.
To me that would be next level. Especially in times were google hates forums. We used to have many members who manually did that work. Those times are over. Without automation our calendar does not get new entries.

 

[beerForo]

I guess I am the dummy in the room but not sure how this really helps the nondeveloper admin/owner who just wants his forum to run smooth etc, in other words can someone do a webhooks for dummies post as to how this would help my forum?

You are not the only one, hoping they implement the "closer integration" mentioned below, or in the least, post tutorials. I suspect there will be third-party add-ons as well.

Now while webhooks may appear on the surface to be something targeted towards developers, there are a number of fantastic third party automation services which are capable of receiving webhooks and triggering actions. These services, such as IFTTT, Make, and Zapier, offer a convenient and user friendly way to automate and integrate applications within your website with thousands of integrations already available.

Closer integration with one or more of these services is being considered for a future release, but all three of the above examples do accept webhooks as a trigger.

 

[Kintaro]

Closer integration with one or more of these services is being considered for a future release,

Please consider some open-source solutions too le the ones already mentioned in this thread.

 

[The Wanderer]

Apologies if the following question has already been answered. How do XenForo plan to use/implement webhooks for this forum?

 

[Dkf]

Will XenForo 2.3 be released before "Black Friday" (November 24, 2024) or not?
Will there be any discounts for Black Friday?

 

[Chris D]

Apologies if the following question has already been answered. How do XenForo plan to use/implement webhooks for this forum?

Most likely posting a few things to our Slack and social media channels.

Will XenForo 2.3 be released before "Black Friday" (November 24, 2024) or not?
Will there be any discounts for Black Friday?

We’ve never held a Black Friday sale. This year will be no different.

 

[CedricV]

We’ve never held a Black Friday sale. This year will be no different.

Well then, time to start being different.

 

[Chris D]

We are different. Everyone else does Black Friday sales, we don’t.

Good value all year round…

 

[James]

Will XenForo 2.3 be released before "Black Friday" (November 24, 2024) or not?
Will there be any discounts for Black Friday?

@Paul B kindly informed me that they were considering increasing the price to $200 but are keeping it instead at $160 so offering a $40 discount year round.

Absolutely!

We were going to put the price up to $200 but with a $40 discount due to the ChatGPT input, we've put it down to $160.

You're welcome.

 

[Feanor]

What are some examples of features you all will create with the help of XF webhooks? (Other than the Discord example already mentioned.)

 

[leebo]

What are some examples of features you all will create with the help of XF webhooks? (Other than the Discord example already mentioned.)

While I’m not sure what fields Xenforo will include, I’ve got a handful of examples already in my mind.

Let’s assume you run a mountain biking forum and during the summer you hold live monthly events. During these events you hold a potluck dinner for the group. In the past you’ve had members post in a thread how many people are attending and what they plan on bringing but often that becomes difficult to sort as these comments are mixed in with other people’s comments. An admin can setup two custom thread fields where members can fill that out, one for # attending and one for their dish. Using webhooks it can then be setup where whenever a member fills out these fields their name, email address, number attending, and dish can automatically be sent to Excel to be entered into a spreadsheet.

Second example,
Let’s assume you run a current events forum that every now and then discussions get heated. It’s a small forum so for now you are the sole Admin/Moderator and it’s difficult to watch 24/7. You could easily set things up using webhooks to send every post to OpenAI to have AI analyze the post for hate speech, threats, or whatever. If AI finds any of this you can set it up where it automatically sends you a notification on Telegram alerting you of the issue.

Third example,
You run a product support forum where users login to get help for their widget. Your company offers 5 different widgets for sale and you commonly send emails to your users when you update your widgets firmware. You can easily setup a custom user field that allows users to select what widgets they own. Using webhooks you can then pass this info onto Sendy where their email is automatically entered into a list depending which widget they own. Then in the future you can target your emails depending which widget the user owns. No need to tell a person who owns widget A that you’ve updated widget B.

 

[Chris D]

Let’s assume you run a mountain biking forum and during the summer you hold live monthly events. During these events you hold a potluck dinner for the group. In the past you’ve had members post in a thread how many people are attending and what they plan on bringing but often that becomes difficult to sort as these comments are mixed in with other people’s comments. An admin can setup two custom thread fields where members can fill that out, one for # attending and one for their dish. Using webhooks it can then be setup where whenever a member fills out these fields their name, email address, number attending, and dish can automatically be sent to Excel to be entered into a spreadsheet.

100% possible.

Second example,
Let’s assume you run a current events forum that every now and then discussions get heated. It’s a small forum so for now you are the sole Admin/Moderator and it’s difficult to watch 24/7. You could easily set things up using webhooks to send every post to OpenAI to have AI analyze the post for hate speech, threats, or whatever. If AI finds any of this you can set it up where it automatically sends you a notification on Telegram alerting you of the issue.

Third example,
You run a product support forum where users login to get help for their widget. Your company offers 5 different widgets for sale and you commonly send emails to your users when you update your widgets firmware. You can easily setup a custom user field that allows users to select what widgets they own. Using webhooks you can then pass this info onto Sendy where their email is automatically entered into a list depending which widget they own. Then in the future you can target your emails depending which widget the user owns. No need to tell a person who owns widget A that you’ve updated widget B.

Yep!