I would like to have the ability to use XML in Pipe request bodies so we can make SOAP API requests instead of just JSON.
There are many APIs out there that are SOAP and we need to be able to connect to these, not just RESTful APIs.
This would be immensely helpful, would open up the opportunity for more pipes and would save money over having to use complicated and expensive SOAP to API conversions systems
Any examples of such SOAP APIs?
The standard in nearly anything built over the last 15 years is REST and not SOAP. Not sure if this is something we will ever pursue.
SOAP continues to be used, despite REST being the standard, unfortunately. The question remains. What is the barrier to allowing XML to be used in the request body?
There are plenty of companies out there that still use SOAP and the goal is to make sure customers are free to use SOAP if needed. Two companies I work with require SOAP and Im sure there are many others out there that have and will run into it.
Unless there is a significant barrier to allowing XML to be included, why not allow it?
There really isn’t a significant barrier, simply a matter of prioritization. Even Zapiers development platform doensn’t support SOAP natively.
To clarify though, there isn’t a switch we can just enable to allow XML, it requires a significant change in how the pipes are processed. It’s possible and doable, just not being added to our roadmap at this time.
If you really require this its likely possible to build a simple proxy to achieve this. Give me some more context or an example, I’d be happy to look more into it.
I realize that you may not see the demand but its certainly out there. There are still quite a few enterprise legacy applications out there that use SOAP and so far, a majority of the APIs I use on a daily basis are with SOAP. Right now, I have to pay for an expensive SOAP to REST conversion service through Microsoft Azure.
I would really love to see Tadabase open up to providing some way for its pipes to work with SOAP. Im not sure what this proxy is you refer to, but if its something that can be built within Tadabase, Im all for it!
Is there any way you can expand on how building a proxy might work? I am desperate to get a way for my pipes to work with SOAP. You mentioned building a proxy.
Just need context. I tried finding APIs that use SOAP only and came up with nothing. It’s still definitely not something we’ll build natively into the platform, but I’ll scope out a proxy idea.
I used to work in the financial and telecoms / unified messaging sector and we used to see a lot of SOAP applications being used. I think it had some advantages over RESTful API’s, stronger standards and possibly the fact it supported asynchronous messaging? I can imagine this isn’t an insignificant effort though to include.