Make HTTP Request Widget

The Make HTTP Request Widget requires several pieces of information to function properly. There are three required fields: Request Method, Request URL, and Content Type. You can select the Request Method and Content Type from a dropdown in the Widget Inspector Panel.

This is what the default configuration looks like for the Make HTTP Request widget:

Expand image

The Make HTTP Request Widget also accepts a few configuration options that let you pass along additional information with your request.

Studio supports the Liquid templating language, which allows you to work with dynamic content throughout your Flow - you may find it useful for creating a Request Body or the value for HTTP parameters on the fly, as seen in the table above. You can see this in action in our Conduct a Survey tutorial.

These events trigger transitions from this Widget to another Widget in your Flow. For more information on working with transitions in Studio, see this user guide.

The Make HTTP Request Widget requires you set up transitions for both success and failure states so that your Studio Flow knows what to do if it gets a response back, or if the request fails in some way. If the request succeeds, you will likely move on to the next Widget in your Flow. On a Fail state, you can choose to retry the request or fail out of the flow.

You may want to reattempt a request to an external service or Twilio Function if a failure occurs.

Expand image

Looping a widget's failure transition back to itself is not an ideal way to implement a retry. This approach eliminates your ability to control the number of repeated requests a user can perform on your services. Additionally, a Flow's Execution will terminate after the same Widget is run 10 times — abruptly ending a user's Execution rather than providing functionality that handles the error.

To properly control retry attempts, you can create a counter within your Flow to keep track of how many requests have been attempted for a particular service and add Widgets to respond based on the result of each retry.

Expand image

To create a counter:

1. Add a Set Variables Widget to create and increment a count variable.
2. Using Liquid tags, first check if the count variable exists. If it does, set the count value to its current value plus one using the Liquid filter plus: 1. If the count variable does not exist, set the value to one. Copy and paste the below code into the Value field of your count variable.

1
{% if flow.variables.count %}
2
{{flow.variables.count | plus: 1}} {% else %} 1 {% endif %}

The count variable can be accessed anywhere in the Flow using {{flow.variables.count}}.

You can now check the count and continue incrementing or move the Flow forward using a Split Based On… Widget.

Expand image

1. Add a Split Based On… Widget to analyze the {{flow.variables.count}} variable and determine if the number of requests has exceeded the limit you set.
2. You will now add a condition to the Widget — checking if the variable is equal to the maximum number of requests you specify. In this example, the maximum number has been set to 3.
3. If the variable being tested is not equal to 3, loop the No Condition Matches transition back to the Run Function Widget that failed. This will result in a retry.
4. If the variable is equal to 3, use another Widget to handle the failure as you wish. For example, you can use a Send Message Widget to communicate the failure to the customer.

The HTTP response from the URL you specify in a Make HTTP Request Widget must return a 2xx status code within 10 seconds to succeed, and the response body must not exceed 64kB. We've outlined a few recommendations for configuring your HTTP response:

You may wish to do some work on the data you pass to your endpoint and return more data or variables to work with further along in your Flow.

If your request returns an object in valid JSON, you will be able to access it via widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.parsed.

For example, if your URL returns {"message": "Hi", "person": {"name": "Bob", "age": 40}}, you can reference that in subsequent widgets as:

widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.parsed.message

widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.parsed.person.name

widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.parsed.person.age

No matter what kind of response your URL returns to Studio, the following variables will be available to your Flow. For more information on working with variables in Studio, see this guide.

{{widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.body}}

The full response body returned from the service.

{{widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.content_type}}

The content type of the service's response.

{{widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.status_code}}

The status code returned from the service.

One example of using the Make HTTP Request Widget is posting a message that comes into a Twilio phone number to Slack. In the screenshot below, we can see that the Make HTTP Request Widget is triggered when a new conversation message comes into this Studio Flow's phone number. The Make HTTP Request Widget will take the message body that comes in from a user (as specified in the Request Body of the Widget's configuration) and POST it to a Slack hook.

Expand image

Want to learn how to use the Make HTTP Request Widget in a real-world example? Follow along with one of our step-by-step tutorials to see this Widget in action in a few different ways:

• How to Post SMS messages to Slack
• How to Conduct an SMS Survey with Studio

Let's build something amazing.