API Use Cases & Yext | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

What You’ll Learn

In this section, you will learn:

• Why do clients use APIs at Yext?
• When are APIs relevant?
• Common Use Cases for APIs at Yext

Overview

At Yext, API integrations are commonly used to integrate databases with your Yext account, so updates to the database will be reflected in Yext, and subsequently reflected on your Listings, Pages, Search, etc…automatically! Without an API integration, this information would have to be updated manually in the platform (either on an entity by entity basis, or bulk upload via spreadsheet).

Establishing an integration provides a faster, automatic, and more reliable way to update and retrieve data.

Additionally, API integrations can be built from Yext to pull analytics, reviews, and queries into your internal system, or even power consumer-level integrations, such as mobile apps and proprietary locators.

Webhooks

Another commonly used API feature are Yext Webhooks. Webhooks can be configured to send real-time callbacks directly to your server from Yext based on certain events - for example, entity updates. Webhooks allow you to keep data in sync across your databases if users are frequently logging into Yext to update entity data.

Always be Automating

In general, anytime a significant amount of information is updating frequently, you should think, “is there an opportunity to automate these updates in Yext with an API integration?”. Let’s look at a few common use cases:

1. Financial Services Client uses Read/Write API to maintain ATM Entity Information

Hitchhiker Financial is a large enterprise Financial Services customer using Yext to power their Listings and Locator (“Find a Location”… on their website). They are adding new ATMs to their network on a daily basis. The only feasible way to keep ATM data up to date in Yext is to build a data feed between Hitchhiker Financial’s internal database and Yext. The API Integration they have with Yext reads the content in the platform to figure out which Entities currently exist, compares it against an internal database, and pushes the appropriate updates to either add new ATM entities or mark existing ATMs as closed if they have been removed.

2. Family Practice uses Read/Write API to maintain Job Entity Information

Galaxy Family Practice utilizes Job Entities in the platform to power Job Listings on their Search experience. Jobs at Galaxy are constantly getting filled and re-opened, so the listing status changes all the time. This information should ideally be updated on a weekly basis, but there are too many job listings and not enough internal resources at Galaxy for this to be done manually. The only way to ensure the job information is up to date is with an API integration!

Galaxy has an API integration with Yext that reads the content in the platform, compares it against Galaxy’s internal HR System (they use Greenhouse), then pushes the appropriate updates to Job Entities in the platform.

3. Alien Telecom uses Read API to pull Yext Information into POS (Point of Sale) System

Alien Telecom uses Yext Content as their internal source of truth when it comes to location information for their 200 stores. This information is highly valuable for other internal systems that Alien Telecom uses, such as ShopKeep, which is their Point of Sale (POS) system. ShopKeep is responsible for printing a store-specific code on all receipts. As such, they have built a read API integration to pull Location information into their other internal systems (including ShopKeep).

4. Quick-Service Restaurant uses the Content Delivery API to power mobile application

Out Of This World Burger Co has a mobile app that allows customers to view restaurants near them and see some core details about the restaurant, like hours of operation, phone number and whether the store is permanently closed or open. As such, they have the Content Delivery API add-on through Yext. They use the Content Delivery API’s Read functionality to dynamically filter out permanently closed locations and pull up-to-date information about their restaurants into the app. They also use the Content Delivery API’s Geosearch functionality to limit the scope of restaurants returned to a 50-mile radius around the customer’s location.