OneConnect Terminologies

Tenant

A Tenant is a term used to describe an Office 365 Organization.

Integration

Consists of two points of connection (Connectors), an integrator, and at least one strategy.

When you're logged into OneConnect, the list you see are all of the Integrations deployed for your Tenant.

Integrator

A web service that can be considered as middleware. Basically, the automated process to bring the two programs/connections together.

For instance, if a customer has a specific business requirement that is out of the standard use-case for an Integration, an Integrator could be created to accomplish the task.

Connector

A section within an integration that allows users to access the program by using a method of authentication.  Additional settings and features may be available as well within the Additional Options dropdown.

E.g. the SharePoint Connector has Operations that can perform the following actions: Get List Items, Create List Items. Operations for Connectors will vary for each product, but typically there are common Operations so that any given Connector can be linked together for an Integration to perform work.

Connection

A Connection is an instance of a Connector. They contain Authentication information for a Connector in an Integration.

Source Connection

A source connection is the location of where the data is being grabbed from. A source connection can change based on the strategy that is being used. OnePlanPublish strategy has the source connection of OnePlan. I.e., We are grabbing the values within OnePlan and bringing them into the other program the integration is connected to.

Destination Connection

A destination connection is the location of where the data is being brought into. OnePlanPublish strategy has the destination connection of any program other than OnePlan. I.e., We are grabbing the values from the source connection (OnePlan) and bringing the values into the other program (destination connection).

Schedule

A Schedule defines when a Strategy should run. They can be configured to run hourly, daily, weekly, monthly. You can also specify specific times, and days of the week.

Strategy (or Job)

A strategy is a set of operations combined to complete an action. No action is taken on these sets of operations; however, they can be a useful tool to assist with debugging errors that may occur.

E.g. sync'ing ServiceNow incidents to a SharePoint list. Or sync'ing Visual Studio Team Services epics to Project Online projects. 

Scheduled Strategy

A scheduled strategy is a strategy that will run either automatically on scheduled intervals or can be run by using the lightning bolt icon with the value of * (asterisk) within the Item ID field.

Event

An event is a strategy that has been triggered either through OnePlan, or by using the lightning bolt icon with a value other than *. Most often the value entered should be related to a Plan ID from the Source connection.

Operation

An Operation is defined in a Connector or Integrator, and is used to perform a specific task.

E.g. getting a list of projects from Project Online.

Incremental Deltas

Some strategies have the capacity to bring in items that have been modified within a window of time, this can be seen in Azure DevOps, Project for the Web, Smartsheet, etc. The modified date must be available to be queried at the “plan level”, if the plan does not have a modification date, then it will not be picked up by the strategy.

Full Deltas

Some strategies do not have the capacity to query a modified date for their items due to the nature of the integration. This can be seen in both SQL, and Tabular Data integrations. Even if the strategy is marked to run only incrementally, the full strategy will be run.

Filters

Filters for scheduled strategies and events are in different locations. If a filter for a scheduled strategy is set, and the strategy is then run as an event, the filters previously set will not apply in this case.

Field Mappings

his is how information is going to transfer from one program to the other. Only a single mapping can occur at a time, this means I cannot map the same value to multiple locations in the other program or vice versa.

Item Mappings

This is a collection of tables that will show where plans and tasks from one program are connected to within the other program. This can appear as a GUID, or as plain text.

Relay

Can be thought of as a software application that can securely expose other services within a clients’ network to the public cloud. A relay should only be used for clients who have programs that are not accessible via the internet. If the clients’ employees require a VPN to get into their company’s program, there is a high probability that they will need a relay.

For more information, see What is a Relay?

Legacy (Basic) Authentication

Legacy authentication is the process/ability to log into a site using only a username and password.

Modern Authentication

Modern Authentication is the process/ability to log into a site using additional credentials beyond username and password. Most commonly seen as a Client ID & Client Secret, this provides an additional level of security and is also considered as more secure than traditional username and password combinations.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Multi-Factor Authentication is considered a multi-step login. If the username and password are correctly entered, then an extra step must be taken for the login to be processed successfully. Because of this, OneConnect does not support accounts that have MFA to be used within the integration.