Can you select vendors through API?
When we start a new project via API, is it possible to select a vendor at that point? Or even an ordered list of vendors as a pre-defined vendor selection rule?
A little background:
We connect Google Sheets to XTRF via API and we use it to automatically start complex projects for a particular client. We’re now thinking we need to take it the next step and automatically assign vendors and get the vendor assignments sent immediately. Our challenge is that the current vendor selection rules don’t work for us. We can select from a pool of vendors (via categories, or preferred vendors) but it doesn’t get us the level of detail based on projects assigned, new vs. experienced vendors, quality rating, nor does it give us the ability to ensure an equitable rotation of vendors to this client.
So, we are hoping we can somehow select the vendor outside of XTRF.
Is anyone doing something like this? Or am I thinking of this entirely wrong?
Customer support service by UserEcho
Hi Mark,
We have had the exact same problem, therefore we have requested some customization in order to do this. I think your mindset is perfectly fine and the vendor selection rules doesn't provide enough customization, just a static set of filters.
The customization we requested was that we could send a job offer through the API in which we could select a specific vendor selection rule id. But that wasn't enough, as we would sometimes be very specific on which vendor to use on which client. Therefore we have requested it to be possible to provide a list of vendor price profile id's to a specific job offer. This one is currently being build by XTRF.
For us that would solve the whole problem, as we can have the filtering done on our own side.
Hello, Dennis
It is nice to e-meet you. Mark and I have been looking into this. Did you get this customization developed by XTRF or is this something you developed elsewhere and the API already had the endpoints?
Thanks,
Hi Pablo,
It's a customization developed by XTRF.
Interesting. I do think if we were able to send a selection rule ID, we may be able to work with that. That may be a reasonable approach. I'm going to think on this a bit. Thanks Dennis!
This is a very interesting discussion. Could you explain what 'sending a selection rule ID' through the API exactly does? The way I understand is that it tells XTRF which predefined selection rule to use, but isn't that the same as building it into the workflow? If the predefined selection rules don't give the required level of detail, what difference makes sending its ID through the API? I'm sure I'm missing something here.
And as a little side note: we have a similar problem, where the existing possibilities in the (Classic Projects) selection rules don't give us what we need, so we wrote a macro that creates and sends requests according to our criteria. That is built in the workflow as a separate job and is triggered through an Azure Logic App. It works, but I'm always interested in easier/better solutions.
You are right that it is somewhat the same as a predefined selection rule. But we have several selection rules that we would like to follow up on each other synchronously. For instance, we start with sending the job offers only to a select group of translators, if they won't respond within the assigned time, the next job offers will be sent to another group that is bigger, etc. etc.
This also gives us the possibility to execute the job offers endless, so that if they finish that we will send a new job offer batch.
This process works very well, but we notice that we sometimes want to be really specific regarding which vendors to send the job offers to. Therefore we have requested an extended version where we can also be able to assign specific vendors price profiles within the job offers.
On a side note: Azure Logic apps is great, I love it!
Nice! I hadn't considered such a staggered approach, but it makes a lot of sense.
And Dennis, I imagine if you're sending a selection rule ID, I imagine you're growing a long list of selection rules. Does that become difficult to manage? I do see a great benefit of your strategy that it allows you to manage much of the logic outside of XTRF - as long as you track the growing list of selection rules effectively.
And we extensively use Zapier and it works well for us.
We are indeed sending a selection rule ID with the call.
The list isn't that long. We have a handfull of selection rules. Like 'preferred supplier', 'has worked for client', 'all at once', 'one by one'. Such provides us with everything needed. As we decide which one goes after which other, and the filters in XTRF effectively do their work.
Ah and ofcourse the great magic of XTRF: randomize translator ID's (https://xtrf.userecho.com/en/knowledge-bases/6/articles/1508-how-to-randomize-or-shuffle-vendors-for-job-offers-and-availability-requests)
Zapier is great indeed, although we don't use them.
@Dennis How is this going? Did you get this working?
The customization team is somewhat slow the last months. The one where we use the selection rules is up and running for a long time already and works like a charm. The one where we can select specific vendors is still in development, though almost done.
@Dennis, I'd love to revisit this and learn about what you're doing. Would you be open to scheduling a call so I can pick your brain a bit about this? Thanks!