WebHook : An Unidirectional Business Event

API considers an excellent and efficient way to create communication between homogeneous, heterogeneous or legacy systems. It runs over HTTP, so it performs fast and smoothly, but in communication services , a new mechanism is introduced known as Webhooks. Generally Webhooks notify receivers about events by making requests to receiver endpoints.

WebHook is a lightweight HTTP pattern for connecting Web APIs and services with a Publish/Subscribe model.

Generally, WebHooks are called reverse API, but that doesn't mean it works in reverse mode. This means that the sender does not need to have the request initiated at the sending end. WebHooks are a way for one app to have real-time information for other apps.

Comparison between API and WebHooks:

Webhooks is a lightweight HTTP pattern for connecting Web APIs and services with a publish/subscribe model. 

WebHook is a lightweight HTTP pattern for connecting Web APIs and services with a publish/subscribe model. It involves only one way communication and delivers data to other applications as it happens. WebHooks are a way for an app to provide other applications with real-time information. when an event happens on the trigger applications, it serializes data about that event and send it to a WebHooks URL form the action application.

There are three parts to using Webhooks:

1. Creating or configuring a service to consume WebHook requests.
2. Registering WebHook step on the Dataverse service, or
3. Invoking a WebHook from a plug-in or custom workflow activity.

A WebHook allows the provider to send data to your application as soon as the event occurs.

Common Usages :

The use of webhooks cannot be limited to a few examples. It depends on the requirements and system design, but below are some examples that can be understood about the use of this feature.

Email Subscription:

This feature can be used as a status point where business users use it for delivery of emails for promotional or informational emails.

Notification :

This is the best option for notification, we can design this feature for notification to all stakeholders of opportunity and account team about the related or important activities

Payment Confirmation:

This feature can update the customers as well as the account department for order payment or overdue bill confirmation.

Summary:

WebHook is powerful feature with less resource-intensive and powerful feature of webhooks is that  send a notification via an HTTP POST. It is a kind of service endpoint where we can implement it with registering a step with plugins or workflow activities. The timeout of this service is 60 seconds. The service will send the request and evaluate the response which can give an understanding about the request whether it is successful or unsuccessful.