Gentrack Integration Resources

Recent updates

We are working to improve and expand the capability of Gentrack Cloud Integration Services. We regularly release new features, squash bugs, and deliver fresh documentation.

Here is what has shipped recently.

January 2024

  • We have released a modern version of the Integration Portal user interface making some significant changes to the look and feel, basically replacing all UI elements with the new ones. We also introduced the Dark Mode and made it default based on the feedback we received from customers and our internal UX Team.
  • We have made performance improvements by upgrading some backend functionality so the new portal works faster.
  • We have streamlined some workflows and made the UI better represent the hierarchy of entities.
  • Finally, we have dropped the term “Developer Portal” in favour of “Integration Portal” or “GCIS Portal” that will be used interchangeably.

August 2023

  • We have implemented a new solution that uses exponential back-off algorithm to reduce the frequency of Event retries. This solution has been put in place to avoid overwhelming the service.
  • We have made additional changes to the Salesforce connector to support additional events. The connector now supports the Service Order Create and Close Events.
  • We have made an update on the Developer Portal. We are now able to show Event Delivery failures that have occurred on the Salesforce connector.

July 2023

  • We have developed an Escrow solution for GCIS that ensures business continuity in case Gentrack is no longer able to operate. This solution allows our customers to continue to access GCIS without any dependency on Gentrack.

June 2023

May 2023

April 2023

  • Several performance improvements have been implemented on the service to decrease the overall latency on API calls.

February 2023

  • We have made changes to how events are ordered on the app subscription screen on the Developer Portal. The Events are now displayed in alphabetical order.

January 2023

December 2022

  • MFA is now mandatory when logging into the GCIS Developer Portal.
  • We now display on the Developer Portal the amount of time since an application secret was generated, to help our customers with deciding when to rotate their application secrets.

November 2022

  • We have made improvements to how we generate applications secrets, making these secrets more robust to external threats.

October 2022

  • We have released a new feature that allows customers to make API calls that have large response payload, allowing customers to handle responses greater than 10MB.

September 2022

  • We have implemented a new solution for handling customer specific Events that allows us to create new Events without having to deploy GCIS. This new implementation has added a new feature to cater for private Events that do not appear on our public documentation.

July 2022

  • We have provided a new Events payload feature, in support of the Salesforce Accelerator. Event Payloads can now be fully configured within the Developer Portal. We have created a new UI for configuring Events that get delivered to Salesforce, and a feature to load a default Event payload configuration.

June 2022

  • As part of our move to the Salesforce Accelerator, we have implemented a feature to disable the v1 Salesforce connector.
  • We have made improvements to the error messages returned when there is an issue with Event delivery

May 2022

  • We have made significant usability improvements to the Data Gateway deployment script. The script now provides on-screen prompts to allow the user to easily setup and Deploy Data Gateway to their server. We’ve also made changes to allow the user to re-install Data Gateway.
  • We now display the Tenant linked to an App under the My Apps heading on the Developer Portal.

April 2022

  • We have made performance improvements, decreasing the latency of API calls through GCIS

March 2022

  • We have been working on a solution to enforce MFA for all users on the Developer Portal. Currently users are being prompted to enable MFA via a message on the Developer Portal. MFA will be made mandatory later this year.

February 2022

January 2022

November 2021

  • We have added rate-based rules to our AWS WAF (web application firewall) implementation to further enhance the security of the GCIS service.

October 2021

  • We have made a significant change to how we deploy Integration Service. We have split out the Data Gateway service from Integration Services, allowing independent deployment of Data Gateway and Integration Services.
  • Salesforce Sales Cloud Connector - We have added a new feature where customers with administrative privileges using the Saleforce Sales Cloud Connector can export core system entities, in the event that data cannot be automatically synced between Salesforce and Gentrack.

September 2021

  • Salesforce Sales Cloud Connector - We have implemented new search functionality to the sync errors page on the Developer Portal, to assist users with their investigations.

August 2021

July 2021

  • We have added tenant level API throttling to allow fair use of resources between tenants and to protect core systems from excessive external API calls.

June 2021

May 2021

April 2021

March 2021

  • We have made improvements to the Developer Portal. Information on internal applications being used on a tenant is now available. Warning messages are now displayed when a Data Gateway connection has been down for more than 30 minutes.

February 2021

  • We have made improvements to the resilience of GCIS by implementing new dedicated resources to control event sending.

December 2020

November 2020

  • We have added support for using JWT authentication between GCIS and Velocity. When connecting a tenant via Portal you’ll now see an option to use Gentrack Cloud identity authentication, and no longer need to provide a username and password. This feature requires an up-to-date version of Velocity and will work for both Gateway and non-Gateway systems.

October 2020

  • We have improved how we display Universal Events API documentation. The event definition YAML file which can be downloaded from the page is now adapted to OpenAPI 3.0 standard format. The documentation is now categorized into different functional areas, such as Billing, Integration and Market Interaction. Existing events remain unchanged and are categorized under Classic Events. For more details, please refer to Universal Events API documentation.
  • We have introduced a feature that changes the identifier format for new tenants. Currently, identifiers are generated as UUIDs (for example, e21940f1-6cb0-4136-a27a-43ba8811bd14), there is now an option to create tenants with shorter, numeric identifiers (for example, 61938746). This feature is currently opt-in only, please contact your CSM if you wish to enable it. We’ll be automatically enabling it for all customers towards the end of the year. It does not affect any existing tenants.
  • Market Interaction Service Universal Events API - We published new Market Interaction Service Universal Events API documentation.

September 2020

  • We made a considerable architectural change that enables our Gentrack Cloud customers to use Gentrack Cloud Integration Services without a requirement to have a Data Gateway provisioned. That means your Gentrack Cloud hosted instances of billing system can now be directly connected to GCIS. This significantly simplifies Gentrack Cloud customer on-boarding, increases reliability of integration as well as reduces time to troubleshoot issues. All existing GCIS customers having their billing systems managed in Gentrack Cloud will be migrated to direct connection method in the following months. All self-hosted customers must still have a Data Gateway installed to connect to Gentrack Cloud Integration Services. Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager should you have any questions.
  • We published new Velocity SGERS Native REST API documentation.

August 2020

June 2020

  • We published new Velocity CORE Native REST API documentation.
  • Universal Events API - Following the Ofgem decision to waive the requirement of sending an annual statement communication to the UK energy consumers, the Annual Statement event API is no longer available for subscription.

May 2020

  • We published new Native API documentation
  • To tighten up security of the integrations you build, we disabled TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in GCIS API so the minimal supported TLS version is 1.2.
  • Salesforce Sales Cloud Connector - When you build a Salesforce integration that needs to make API calls to other systems, you consider to use the Named Credential which specifies the URL of a callout endpoint and its required authentication parameters in one definition. To enable you to retrieve data from the Gentrack systems, we added an extra optional API calls to Gentrack capability that allows Salesforce to directly call Gentrack APIs.
  • For greater security, we have made a change to Gentrack Cloud which enabled us to start signing the application tokens by periodically-rotated keys.

April 2020

March 2020

January 2020

December 2019

  • Salesforce Sales Cloud Connector - When we subscribe to Salesforce events there are occasional times when event retention periods roll over that the connector needs to refresh it’s subscription high watermark. To handle this better we automated handling of this so that there is no need for manual intervention.

November 2019

  • Velocity Native API - Developers now have access to Velocity Native APIs through Gentrack Cloud Integration Services.

October 2019

  • Connectors – Gentrack Cloud Integration Services offers a native integration with Salesforce Sales Cloud Connector which has been optimised to deliver the best of both systems. Our connector synchronises relationship, contract, quote-to-order management data, surfaces events on which more complex workflows can be built, and delivers the essential sales workflows for your business.

September 2019

  • We made a change enforcing the correct content-type HTTP header to be set for Native Web API requests.

August 2019

  • Developer Portal – to give you more control over your tenants, we added the following features to the Tenants page:
    • If you are unsure whether connection between GCIS and your core billing system is up or down, you can seamlessly test that by clicking Test Connection button.
    • In case of the Data Gateway fall-over, you can quickly restore connection by reconnecting your tenants to a new Data Gateway.

July 2019

  • Tenant-specific encryption – being a multi-tenanted service, we don’t put all eggs in one basket. Your data that we temporarily hold is encrypted in transit and at rest with each tenant having its own encryption key. If one key is compromised, a data breach will not affect your other tenants.

March 2019

  • Universal Events API - While smart meter rollout continues to grow, it will be several years before there is complete coverage across all geographies. In the interim, basic meters require regular readings performed by someone physically reading meters. These meter reading events enable you to reduce the risk of inaccurate bills by proactively involving the customer in meter reading.

February 2019

January 2019

October 2018

  • Connectors - Mandrill, a best of breed transactional email service from MailChimp, is available now from the Connector Store. Use it to improve your customer engagement with visual template editing and in-depth analytics with custom tracking.

    • Regular bill email
    • Final bill email

  • Universal Events API - Assuring your customers that the house move is happening when they expect it can reduce the stress of a move and ensure a smooth continuity of service. Even if they cannot take the service on the move, helping wrap up services on move out is equally important to leaving a positive impression for future business. These new moving home events will keep your customers informed whether they are able to take the service or not.

  • Data Gateway - Data Gateway tenants are now managed from the Developer Portal. This means that instead of a user manually adding a tenant to the Data Gateway, the Developer Portal will initiate the tenant registration process.

September 2018

  • Universal Events API - Delivery failures are now monitored in real time. This means we will automatically tell you when your webhook endpoint becomes non-responsive, and when it is up and running once again.

August 2018

  • Developer Portal - We introduced Domain White List to reduce possibility of data exfiltration through a malicious webhook.
  • Developer Portal - Be able to see a trace of changes made to your organisation’s profile, settings, and subscriptions in the Audit Logs.

July 2018

  • Universal Events API - We released Annual Statement event to enable you to design an annual statement that can drive positive customer experience without spending days and weeks on its generating.
    • annual-statement
  • Developer Portal - Be alerted to failed event deliveries via e-mail address of your choice.
  • Web API - Applications can now authenticate to the Web API programmatically.

June 2018

May 2018

April 2018

  • Live Demo - We published a Demo Gentrack Cloud Integration Services with Taplytics to deliver rich push notifications that help customers pay with confidence.

March 2018

February 2018

  • Live Demo - We published a Demo showing how to use Gentrack Cloud Integration Services with MailChimp to drive your Welcome Pack experience.

January 2018

December 2017

  • Developer Portal - We released the service to allow developers to understand what is available, connect to the product, and begin interacting with it with minimal effort and time.

October 2017

Last updated on 5 Feb 2024