Upgrading fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) to OAuth 2.0

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Last year Xero began the transition from using OAuth 1.0a for authenticating with the Xero API to OAuth 2.0. We wrote about our plans for OAuth 2.0 and fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) back in December and released an update shortly afterwards that supported OAuth 2.0. This was mainly aimed at new customers as Xero removed the ability to create new OAuth 1.0a Private Apps in December and we needed a solution for new customers who could only create OAuth 2.0 apps to integrate with.

Existing customers who have been using fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) prior to December 2019 also need to start planning the transition to OAuth 2.0 as Xero will be removing support for OAuth 1.0a Private Apps in 12 months (you have plenty of time to make the change). Here are the critical dates that you need to be aware of:

  • 2nd December 2019: Developers could no longer create new OAuth 1.0a apps (if you need to create a new private app before June 2020 get in touch and we’ll show you how to do this for the next few months if necessary)
  • December 2020: you should aim to have your existing integration upgraded from OAuth 1.0a to OAuth 2.0 by the end of the year
  • 30 September 2021: OAuth 1.0a will no longer be supported for any integrations. You must have upgraded by 30 September 2021 or your existing integration will stop working (the original deadline of March 2021 has been extended for private apps only).

You can read more about why Xero are changing to OAuth 2.0 here and they have an FAQ on OAuth 2.0 as well. Since the initial release last year they have released a number of improvements to OAuth 2.0 to make for a faster and more seamless authentication process.

If you’re not sure where to start we have some good news for you – we’ve done all the hard work and have 2 new versions of fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) that support OAuth 2.0. We’ve invested hundreds of hours of development time over the past few months in preparing these updates to have them available as soon as possible so you have as much time as possible to complete the upgrade.

If you’re looking to upgrade your fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v1 integration from OAuth 1.0a to OAuth 2.0 we’re pleased to have the following options available.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v1

Since we first released fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) back in 2014 we’ve been releasing free updates to v1 for all customers ever since. That’s almost 6 years of free updates which we are very proud of and we’ve decided to also provide a free update to all existing customers to the OAuth 2.0 version. This is a major update from Xero and we didn’t want to leave our hundreds of customers all around the world without an option to update here (see important dates above).

All existing fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v1 customers can download the latest v1 release (v1.97 or later) which now supports OAuth 2.0 only. To download the latest v1 file just use the same link on your original order email (contact us if you can’t find the email or need the link to be reset etc) or if you created an account at the time of ordering you can login to our site and download it from your order history page.

We have a dedicated page (see below) that outlines the changes between the OAuth 1.0a and OAuth 2.0 versions and what changes you will need to make if you wish to upgrade an existing version/integration. You can always just use the new file and migrate your data across and perform the initial one off OAuth 2.0 authentication if you haven’t customised or integrated with other FileMaker solutions.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v1 OAuth 2.0 Update Guide

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2

As well as providing a free update to v1 of fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) we’ve also released a new version that supports OAuth 2.0 and no longer requires a FileMaker plug-in to communicate with the Xero API. As we mentioned back in December one of the benefits of the move to OAuth 2.0 is that we can finally remove the plug-in dependency for authenticating with the Xero API that was necessary when using OAuth 1.0a and Xero private apps. This has been the reason why we haven’t been able to release a version of fmAccounting Link that runs natively on the FileMaker 16 Platform or higher without requiring a FileMaker plug-in. There are a number of benefits to removing the plug-in dependency, including faster API request processing and the ability to use other clients like FileMaker Go (without being connected to FileMaker Server).

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2 is now available and is a paid upgrade (customers who purchased v1 on or after 1 December, 2019 are entitled to a free upgrade!). All v1 customers are entitled to a 50% discount and you should have received your discount coupons in our initial mailout. Please get in touch if you haven’t received your coupon for the free or discount upgrade.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2 looks and feels similar to v1 but under the hood it is completely different. We’ve updated every script that touches the Xero API but it all works in a very similar manner. We’re now using native FileMaker script steps and functions which were first introduced in the FileMaker 16 platform, so you must be running FileMaker 16 or higher to use fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2. We’re now using JSON for all data that we send and receive to Xero and are no longer using calculation fields to store the data payload to upload to Xero (we create a calculation as part of the upload scripts). Check out our v2 update guide below for further details on the changes from v1 to v2 that you need to be aware of.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2 Update Guide

If you don’t have the time or resources to complete the upgrade to OAuth 2.0 please get in touch as we are available for consulting to work with you on upgrading your existing integration to either v1 or v2 of fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition).

OAuth 2.0 App Setup and Authentication

The way you authenticate with the Xero API changes from the old OAuth 1.0a private app setup where you exchanged a set of keys to the new OAuth 2.0 where a user has to login to Xero to approve access to your new app/integration. We have a video covering the OAuth 2.0 App Setup on our videos page (the authentication process is the same for both versions).

As part of the OAuth 2.0 authentication fmAccounting Link will store the following for the Organisation your authenticated with:

At the successful completion of the OAuth 2.0 flow you will be granted an access token to act on behalf of the user as well as a refresh token. Access tokens expire after 30 minutes and you can refresh an access token without user interaction by using a refresh token.

N.B. Unused refresh tokens expire after 60 days. If you don’t refresh your access token within 60 days the user will need to reauthorize your app.

fmSMS and “Doctor by Text” service

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We’ve seen some amazing innovative solutions developed by our customers using our fmSMS solution over the past 15 years in many different industries. Here’s another one about “texting medicine” from Virginia, USA including COVID-19 screening in these times of social distancing and staying at home.

WAVY-10 TV in Virginia, USA ran a story about “texting medicine” featuring one of our clients Bryan Fine, MD from Percentric and how he’s using fmSMS to provide a “Doctor by Text” service including COVID-19 based screening. Great to see our fmSMS Chat View appearing on TV as well!

Read the full story and watch the video here:

https://www.wavy.com/news/health/coronavirus/texting-doctor-right-guy-at-the-right-time-for-local-business/

fmSMS Now Supports Nobel SMS Gateway

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We’ve just added support for the Nobel SMS Gateway based in Romania. Nobel provides a high performance messaging solution and can reach over 800 operators in 180 countries across the world.

You can download a trial version of fmSMS to test with the Nobel SMS Gateway from here – please get in touch if you have any questions about using fmSMS with Nobel.

fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) Now Supports the REST API v3

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Back in 2018 we wrote about the new version of the WooCommerce REST API – v3 – that was released as part of WooCommerce 3.5. We had planned to let the dust settle for a few months before switching over from v2 to v3 and make this change in 2019. Time got away from us and with WooCommerce 4.0 just around the corner we felt we should make this change now.

We’ve just released an update to fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) – v1.65. In this version we’ve changed the version number of the API that we call from v2 to v3 in the WooCommerce_BaseURL custom function. At this stage we haven’t made any v3 specific changes as these were much smaller in scope than the jump from v1 to v2 of the REST API. The system requirements for fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) will change slightly – you will need WooCommerce 3.5.x or later and WordPress 4.4 or later. We do plan on adding support for v3 specific changes in future updates, such as the new reviews endpoint and refunding of line items.

There are also a number of other changes in this update (full list here) including:

  • added New Customer Webhook example for automatically creating a new Customer record in the fmEcommerce Link file when a new Customer is created in WooCommerce
  • added Data API compatible versions of New Customer Webhook and New Order Webhook PHP files

The FileMaker Server Data API will replace the current XML and PHP APIs over time so we’re excited to include support for the Data API. Supporting the Data API also means you can now use Webhooks when your file is hosted by FileMaker Cloud for AWS, as well as FileMaker Server v17 or later. We’ve been testing these Data API Webhooks for the past few months with a FileMaker Cloud for AWS hosted solution and the PHP files running on Amazon Lightsail successfully.

The Data API is language agnostic – you can use whichever programming language you prefer here. We’ve gone with PHP for our examples as that is what we know best. Remember when working with the Data API you will need to enable the fmrest extended privilege for the Webhooks Privilege Set:

If you are just looking to use the Data API PHP files make sure you also update the Process Webhooks Order script as this has been updated to work with the Data API version of the Webhooks which work slightly differently to the existing PHP API ones.

Once again this is a free update to all existing customers (simply download using the same link that was on your original order email). If you’re having any issues with downloading the new version please contact us if you need the link to be reset etc.

fmSMS Now Supports MessageBird SMS Gateway

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We’ve just added support for the MessageBird SMS Gateway based in Amsterdam. MessageBird provides global SMS messaging and you can send and receive SMS messages around the world on a platform powered by connections with over 240 carriers in 200 countries.

You can download a trial version of fmSMS to test with the MessageBird SMS Gateway from here – please get in touch if you have any questions about using fmSMS with MessageBird.

fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition) v1.1 Update

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We’ve just released another free update to fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition), our FileMaker solution for integrating with the DocuSign eSignature platform. This updates provides additional functionality around DocuSign Templates including:

  • you can now specify a value or a field name to use to pre-populate Template Tabs such as Text and Number tabs that can have the value set dynamically
  • you can now download the Tabs and Roles for DocuSign Templates to save you having to enter these manually (we downloaded a Template with 6 Roles and 120 tabs in under 2 seconds)
  • we’ve updated to support the latest version of the eSignature API (v2.1) and are now using a custom function to store the value of the DocuSign API to allow this to be updated more easily in the future

The new Template Tabs Value field allows you to specify a hardcoded value (e.g. “Acme Inc” for a text tab that users would enter their Company Name into) or a merge field, e.g.:

RequestsContactsContacts::Position

that will be merged at runtime as the Envelope is being constructed and replaced with the value from that field reference for the current recipient record. We’v also added a Locked field to the Template Tabs table to allow certain fields to be locked or “read-only” to the recipient. You can see the difference in the following screenshots. In the first screenshot we have set the Locked Value to false – the field has the pre-populated value but we can edit this if required:

In the next screenshot we have set the set the Locked Value to true and the field has the blue border and cannot be edited:

Here’s a short video showing the downloading of Template Tabs and Roles and how to use the new Template Tabs Value field to pre-populate custom tabs (you can also watch it on YouTube here):

The full list of changes are listed in the version history here. Existing customers can download this version from the link on your original order email (contact us if you need the link to be reset etc).

fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) Now Runs Natively on FileMaker 16 or Higher Platform

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We’re pleased to announce that v1.4 of fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) is now available and includes a number of new features, including native support for FileMaker Pro v16 and later. This is a free update to all existing customers (simply download using the same link that was on your original order email).

With the release of the FileMaker 16 platform we got a number of new functions and script steps, including support for working with JSON data and being able to specify supported cURL options with the Insert From URL script step. These new features meant that we were no longer dependent on plug-in functions and we could replace these with native FileMaker features.

We’ve updated all the requests for downloading and uploading to the AccountRight API to use native FileMaker functions and script steps so you no longer need to use a FileMaker plug-in if you’re using FileMaker Pro v16 or higher. This means you can also use fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) on FileMaker Go natively (requires FileMaker Go 16 or higher).

Like our previous updates for native FileMaker functionality for our other products we’ve simply updated the scripts to check which version of FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go or FileMaker Server is being used and if you’re using v15 or earlier we simply use the previous plug-in functionality, and if you’re using v16 or later we now use native functionality. Everything works exactly the same regardless of which version of FileMaker Pro you’re using, but we can now include support for FileMaker Go as well as having one less dependency to worry about.

This release also includes examples for downloading and uploading Timesheets as well as downloading Payroll Categories, and some example scripts for searching for Contacts in AccountRight by Company/Individual Name and Card ID.

You can get all the details on our version history page – if there are any additional features or examples you would like to see in fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) please get in touch and let us know. If you’re having any issues with downloading the new version please contact us if you need the link to be reset etc.

Databuzz 2019 End of Year Xmas Sale – 20% Off All Licenses

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The Databuzz End of Year Xmas Sale is now on – all Product Licenses are now 20% off, including:

Use the coupon XMAS2019 at checkout on any purchase and the 20% discount will be applied to your order. The sale runs until the end of the day on December 31, 2019 (Australian Eastern Daylight Time). Click here to start shopping. fmSMS licenses can be purchased from the fmSMS website.

Free trial versions are available for all of our products – please contact us to request a trial version.

All our prices are in Australian dollars – if you’re purchasing from outside of Australia you’ll also get to take advantage of the low Australian dollar (1 Australian Dollar equals approximately 0.69 US Dollars).

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) Now Supports OAuth 2.0

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Earlier this month Xero said goodbye to OAuth 1.0a and moved to OAuth 2.0 for a simpler, faster and more secure authentication experience (see our earlier post about this). We’ve been busy working on an update to fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition), our solution for integrating the FileMaker Platform with Xero, which we previewed in an previous post where we discussed the changes and the updates we plan to release as a result of the move to OAuth 2.0.

We’re pleased to announce that v1.97 of fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) now supports OAuth 2.0, so new customers can now create OAuth 2.0 apps for the Xero API and connect them to the FileMaker Platform using fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition). We’ve updated our integration guide and posted a new video showing you how to setup an OAuth 2.0 app. Setting up an OAuth 2.0 app in Xero and connecting this to the fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) solution only takes a few minutes and once you’ve completed the initial authentication everything works the same as before.

We’re working on documenting the process if you wish to convert your existing fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) solution from OAuth 1.0a to OAuth 2.0. There’s no immediate rush as you have until December 2020 to update existing OAuth 1.0a integrations to OAuth 2.0. We’re also working on v2.0 of fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) which will only support OAuth 2.0 and not require a FileMaker plug-in – it will use native FileMaker functions and scripts and will require FileMaker Pro v16 or later.

If you have any questions about fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) and OAuth 2.0 please get in touch or post a comment below.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) and OAuth 2.0

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Xero recently launched a beta version of OAuth 2.0 for the Xero APIs for developers building new integrations. OAuth 2.0 is a replacement for the current OAuth 1.0a which works with various app “types”, including partner, public and private. fmAccounting Link uses the private app type – with OAuth 2.0 the concept of “app types” will be going away and all developers will use OAuth 2.0.

Xero’s OAuth 2.0 implementation is built to the industry standard spec for OAuth 2.0, so if you’ve used it before it will be very familiar (we use this in our fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) solution for the MYOB AccountRight Cloud).

Last month Xero announced that from 2 December 2019 developers will no longer be able to create OAuth 1.0a apps on the Xero platform and that all new apps will need to use OAuth 2.0. We will be releasing a free update to fmAccounting Link in December that supports OAuth 2.0 – essentially this involves changing how the authentication process works (see preview video below). We will have further details on the changes involved if you wish to update your existing integration when we release this update.

One of the additional benefits of the move to OAuth 2.0 is that we can finally remove the plug-in dependency for authenticating with the Xero API that was necessary when using OAuth 1.0a. This has been the reason why we haven’t been able to release a version of fmAccounting Link that runs natively on the FileMaker 16 Platform or higher without requiring a FileMaker plug-in. There are a number of benefits to removing the plug-in dependency, including faster API request processing and the ability to use other clients like FileMaker Go (without being connected to FileMaker Server).

As part of the migration to OAuth 2.0 Xero have announced that existing OAuth 1.0a apps will continue to be supported until at least December 2020, allowing you sufficient time to migrate across to the new platform. This means by December 2020 you will need to update your integration to use OAuth 2.0.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) currently supports FileMaker Pro v12 or higher and the native functions and script steps that replace the plug-in calls were only introduced in FileMaker Pro v16, so we will be releasing 2 updates to fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) over the next few months:

  1. our first update that we are planning to release in December, 2019 will be for new customers and those who are happy to continue using the plug-in (e.g. if you are using FileMaker Pro v15 or earlier). This will be a free update so all users will have a solution to the OAuth 2.0 migration (we’ve been releasing free updates for fmAccounting Link for over 5 years now).
  2. we are also working on an update to fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) that will not require the plug-in and will require FileMaker Pro v16 or later. As you can imagine this is a massive undertaking (having been through this process for our WooCommerce, Shopify, fmSMS and MYOB AccountRight solutions we know the time commitment involved) and this release will be the first paid update to fmAccounting Link in over 5 years. We will have discounted upgrades for existing customers who also wish to make the transition to a native integration. We are planning to release this update in the first quarter of 2020.

We will be in contact with all existing customers once we have the first free update available and will have further instructions on our website about how to make the transition to OAuth 2.0. If you would like to see how this will look here’s a preview video showing the changes to the authentication – you can also watch this directly on YouTube here.