Integrating Clarityflow into your software platform
This article is aimed at companies who run (or are building) a software platform, with your own user login system, and you're interested in potentially integrating Clarityflow to provide messaging capabilities inside your platform.
At a high-level, you should be aware that Clarityflow's product is not specifically designed for deep integrations with custom-built (or 3rd-party software) platforms. Meaning, you shouldn't expect to be able to give your users a 100% native experience with Clarityflow's features appearing as if they are native features that are built into your platform.
However — Clarityflow does offer several tools and functionalities that could potentially be useful for light integrations and user flows between your platform and Clarityflow.
This article gives you a few pointers to help you form your technical strategy.
In this article, you'll learn:
- What integration options does Clarityflow offer?
- Identifying users when they submit a message (but are not logged-in)
- How you can use the viewer identification system when integrating in your platform
What integration options does Clarityflow offer?
Here are several features and options you may want to take advantage of. You'll find links to learn more about each.
Map your own domain to Clarityflow
The best way to use Clarityflow is to run the product on Clarityflow. You can map your own domain name and apply your own custom branding to make it feel more seamless with your platform.
Clarityflow's Zapier integration
When it comes to integrations, Clarityflow's Zapier integration is our most capable option, which offers almost all features and functionality found inside Clarityflow, accessible via Zapier.
Clarityflow's API
Some features and functionality can be triggered using Clarityflow's REST API endpoints.
Clarityflow Webhooks
Receive webhooks when certain events happen in Clarityflow.
Embed Clarityflow using HTML iframes
Clarityflow intake pages and conversation pages can be embedded using HTML iframes. Note: See info below regarding identifying users when submitting messages into Clarityflow.
Conversations a be public or private
By default, new conversations in Clarityflow are publicly visible to anyone you share the link with. You also have the option to make conversations private (must be logged-in and invited to view). So it's always easy to post a link in any app or platform that points to a public conversation on Clarityflow.
- Learn more about conversations on Clarityflow
- Learn more about respondent users vs. team members in Clarityflow
Clarityflow offers Intake Pages where anyone can submit a message
You have the ability to create public Intake Pages, which are pages where anyone can submit a new message to you. When they do, this starts a new conversation in your Clarityflow account.
Identifying users when they submit a message (but are not logged-in).
It's important to keep in mind that Clarityflow does not offer single-sign-on (SSO) functionality, nor a way to authenticate your users' logins with a login on Clarityflow.
However, Clarityflow does have a simple, light way of identifying users who aren't currently logged into Clarityflow. It makes use of a special URL parameter, ?viewer=email .
For a deep-dive on how the ?viewer=email system works, read this.
How you can use the viewer identification system when integrating in your platform:
If you're making use of the HTML iframe embed option in your platform, and if you give each of your users a personalized user page (where you have access to the currently logged-in user), then theoritically, you can dynamically ?viewer=email to the iframe embed code, in order to identify your logged-in user.
This would require you to pre-register each of your users in Clarityflow. You can do this by creating invitations for these users individually or using the batch invitations feature.
Note: You don't need to actually send the invitations via email from Clarityflow in order to register someone's email address as an identifyable user. Simply creating the invitation (and leaving it in a 'pending' state) is enough for this purpose.
All of that being said — For the best user experience, and for the highest level of engagement in Clarityflow — We highly recommend making use of the Clarityflow's built-in platform, invitations system, and custom branding features.