We keep expanding the spectrum of tasks that can be automated with EasyMorph. In particular, tasks that require exchanging data and files with people and systems outside of your organization.
Soon, we will present a new feature called "Web automation" available in Server spaces. It will expand the functionality of EasyMorph Gateway and consolidate under one roof the following:
- Webhooks, used for machine-to-machine automation (already available)
- Web Tasks, for collecting data and files from people outside of your organization (ready for release in v5.8.1 in a few weeks)
- Web Shares, for sharing files with people outside of your organization
The first two have been covered previously on this forum. The last one is totally new, and I'd like to explain it a bit more:
While "Web Tasks" are intended for collecting data and files from external counterparties, such as suppliers, partners, resellers, branches, and customers, the "Web Shares" feature will allow moving data in the opposite direction, i.e., sharing files with external counterparties.
In my opinion, sharing data is still not a well-solved problem as of today. The frequently used options, such as uploading to SFTP or sharing a folder in OneDrive or Google Drive, are either too technically complex for the recipients, or can't be properly governed/audited. Plus, storing sensitive data in a 3rd party cloud service is always subject to the risk of data breach/leak. For instance, in 2017, Alteryx accidentally exposed sensitive data about 123 million American households, including addresses, phone numbers, mortgage ownership, age, ethnicity, and personal interests (read more about it here, or just google it) by uploading a file to a public cloud without setting up proper access restrictions.
What we're offering is a data-sharing solution in which this type of breach isn't even theoretically possible by design. Its main principles are:
Zero cloud footprint
Data is never uploaded to and stored in the cloud. When requested by the authorized recipient, EasyMorph Server pushes it directly to the user's browser.
End-to-end encryption
When in transit, transferred data is encrypted, so it's not possible to intercept it in the middle (the so-called MITM attack). This is in addition to the usual SSL encryption.
Full clarity
At any moment, it will be possible to see and analyze who is sharing what and with whom. Or shared in the past.
Approvals
Optionally, it will be possible to require another person to approve sharing a file. There will be two permissions, "create a web share" and "approve a web share", that can be configured to belong to two different user roles. So people having one role can create shares, while people with another role can approve them.
Additionally, it will be possible to limit sharing by setting an expiration date or max successful downloads for each recipient (e.g., 1).
This is what it will look like for the external recipient:
Notice the "Submit" tab above - that's Web Tasks. So the external user will see available Web Tasks (to send data) and Web Shares (to receive data) in one user interface.
This is what a list of web shares will look like on EasyMorph Server:
Automation
Web shares can be created manually, or automatically in a workflow with a special action "Create a web share". If approvals are mandated, even automatically created web shares must be approved manually. There will be no automated approvals.
Notifications
Optionally, recipients will receive email notifications when a new file is shared with them.
Combination with other features
As with everything else, this feature can nicely combine with other features of EasyMorph. For instance:
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An external person triggers a web task that will run a workflow that creates a web share with the result of this workflow and shares it back with the person who triggered the web task. So you can deliver personalized data (e.g. price-lists, inventory stocks, etc.) to your external counterparties.
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An external person sends an email with a list of SKUs. Your Server task receives the email, gets the list of SKUs, retrieves a PDF file for each SKU, zips all PDFs all into one archive (too big to send by email), and shares it with the recipient automatically.
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A scheduled task checks for invoices that are not paid in time, and shares securely overdue invoices as a reminder.
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An internal business application uses EasyMorph as a generic service for sharing files automatically (because it doesn't have its own). For that, it programmatically uploads the necessary file to the EasyMorph Server and then sends a request to a Server's API endpoint to share the file with the person specified in the request. EasyMorph handles the rest.