Your application is more useful when it works with the tools your team already uses. Integrations connect an application built with Aha! Builder to more than 3,000 external services — customer relationship management platforms, messaging tools, payment processors, spreadsheets, databases, and more — so your application can read data from those systems and act on them.
Integration setup is available on all Aha! Builder plans: Pro, Team, and Scale.
To open the Integrations page, click Configuration in your application's navigation bar and select the Integrations tab.
Click any of the following links to skip ahead:
Prerequisites
Action |
User permissions |
|---|---|
Connect a tool and manage integrations |
How integrations work
Aha! Builder uses Pipedream as a connection layer between your application and the services in the catalog. Pipedream handles the authentication flow for each service, which is usually the slowest part of setting up an integration. You choose a tool, sign in to it once, and then describe what you want the integration to do.
The catalog handles the connection. Pipedream manages the sign-in and stores the resulting authorization, so you do not need to find the right API, generate a key, or read a vendor's authentication documentation.
Elle builds the behavior. Once a tool is connected, tell Elle, the AI assistant, what the integration should do in your application. Elle writes the code and wires it in.
The process is the same for every tool. You do not need to learn a different setup for each service.
Two details are worth knowing before you connect a tool:
Aha! Builder makes connections through the Aha! Pipedream account. The authorization screen identifies Pipedream, and services may show its name in what they send. A Slack message that your application posts, for example, will show Pipedream as the sender.
Connections belong to a single application. You cannot share one connection across several applications.
Integrations through Pipedream are available to all Aha! Builder customers at no extra cost to start. If you exceed the usage threshold, you must reconnect your integration using your own Pipedream account or ask Elle to build a native connection in your application, which consumes AI credits.
Find a tool to connect
You already know which tools your company uses. The harder question is which of them your application can reach — so the catalog is worth browsing before you start building.
Scan the tiles on the Integrations page to see commonly used services.
Search by name to find a specific tool, or keep scrolling to review the entire catalog.
Read the description before you select a tile. The integrations catalog search matches descriptions as well as names, so results include tools that work with the service alongside the service itself. Some services also publish more than one connector, such as a legacy version or one scoped to a bot user.
If you cannot find a tool, describe it to Elle anyway. Elle can often build the connection directly from the service's public API.
Connect a tool
Select a tile to open the Connect dialog, then choose how your application should access data.
Per app: One shared connection is available to everyone who can use the application. Every user sees the same data. Choose this for shared views such as a leadership dashboard, or when the data does not vary by person.
Per user: Each end user connects their own account for that service, and actions run with that user's credentials. Every user sees only the data they have access to in the connected tool. Choose this when the application works with personal data, such as an individual's files or calendar.
Click Next to hand off to Pipedream, which manages the sign-in.
If you have chosen Per app, you will see the We use Pipedream to connect your account screen. Click Continue. Continuing means you accept Pipedream's terms of service and privacy policy.
Sign in to the service and grant the access your application needs.
Preview and Production are separate environments for your application. Once you have tested a connection in Preview, recreate it in Production to see it there.
Build the integration with Elle
After you connect a tool, use Elle will add it to your application.
Describe what the integration should do, such as what data to read, what action to take, and where it belongs in the application. For example: "When a vendor's onboarding tasks are all complete, post a message to our operations channel in Slack."
Review what Elle builds in Preview and keep refining until it works the way your team needs.
Specific prompts produce better integrations than general ones. Name the records, fields, and destinations you want your application to use.
Preview and production environments
There are two environments: Preview for building and testing your application, and Production for serving it to users. Each keeps its own connections, and Aha! Builder does not copy preview connections to production. Use the Preview and Production toggle at the top of the page to switch between them.
Set up and test an integration in Preview first.
Connect the tool again in Production when the integration is ready.
Confirm you are in the environment you intend before you change or remove a connection.
To control whether applications in your account may reach outside services at all, review your account's governance rules, available to Aha! Builder Team and Scale plans. The rule to disable applications' access to the internet prevents applications from connecting to any external service, including integrations you have already configured.
Connect without the catalog
The catalog is the fastest path, but it is not the only one. Connect a service directly when you want your application to authenticate with its own credentials rather than through Pipedream.
Store a credential yourself: Add an API key, token, or other credential on the Secrets tab, then ask Elle to build on it. Aha! Builder encrypts secrets at the application layer and does not expose them in your application code or server logs.
Connect to Aha! Roadmaps: Use a personal API key rather than the catalog. The key gives your application the full Aha! REST API and inherits the permissions of the user who generated it.
Ask Elle to build it natively: Describe the service to Elle and provide the credentials it asks for. Elle will build the connection into your application code without Pipedream.