Box Connector Reference

Box is a general purpose, SaaS enterprise content management system. Organizations use Box to securely manage and to collaborate on documents, images, videos and various other files.

Connections

To connect to a system, whether it is a source of data or the target where you are sending data, you must create a connection with that system’s required credentials. You typically connect to different systems within a flow and can reuse each connection every time you need to connect.

This system requires the following credential information for its connections:

Connection Name: Enter a connection name that will help you remember the details of this connection. You can reuse connections multiple times in a single flow, and in more than one flow, and the credentials are hidden after you create the connection. Therefore, it’s helpful to provide a name that easily identifies this connection from others.

Only you can see the connection. Other users in your Composer app must create their own connections.
Username: The OAuth username that you use to log in to Box.
Password: The OAuth password that you use to log in to Box.

Transfer Binary Files

You can transfer binary files as field inputs using data pills from within your Composer flow. For example, when keeping files in sync between Box instances, you can download binary file content from one instance and later upload that same file content to another instance. The recommended file size limit per transfer is 25MB and files transferred across systems cannot be truncated.

Triggers

Each flow starts with either a scheduler or a trigger. Schedulers are set to a default frequency of 15 minutes. Triggers, such as "each time a new record is created", are defined by you and provide multiple options related to the data in your system.

Triggers use a polling process to actively check for new updates from an external system. The polling frequency is 15 seconds.

This system provides the following trigger options:

On new file in folder: Triggers when a new folder is added. Provide a value for Folder ID.

Polling Frequency

For triggers in this connector, the Polling Frequency field is required. This field enables you to select how often Composer makes a request to the underling system API to look for changes to records in active flows. You can select a different polling frequency for each flow in your organization. With a shorter frequency, the flow executes more often; however, a shorter frequency consumes more API calls. For example, if you have an order management flow, you might require nearly real-time updates, which can be achieved with a 15-second polling interval (which equates to 5760 API calls per day). In contrast, if your flow updates a pricing catalog, you could poll the flow every hour (which equates to 24 API calls per day).

Actions

After you connect to a system and define the trigger or configure a scheduler, you define the actions that the flow performs. For example, you can copy a record between different systems, such as Workday and Salesforce. The actions you can perform depend on which system you are connected to.

This system provides the following actions:

Add file to folder using URL

Adds a file to a folder in Box which is referenced by a publicly-shared URL. Provide a value for the following fields:

Folder ID
Source URL

Upload File

Adds a file to a folder in Box. Provide a value for the following fields:

File Name
File contents
Folder ID
Existing File ID

Download File

Returns the binary contents of the specified file and version. Provide a value for the following fields:

File ID
Version

Create folder

Creates a folder in the Box structure. Provide a value for the following fields:

Parent Folder ID
Folder name

Create file metadata

Creates file metadata by populating a metadata template on a file in Box. Provide a value for the following fields:

File ID
Metadata template

Multiple selection field types, such as checkboxes, do not appear in Composer.

Update file metadata

Updates file metadata by updating the existing metadata template on a file in Box. Provide a value for the following fields:

File ID
Metadata template