How to use IBM App Connect with IBM Food Trust
IBM Food Trust is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) food-safety solution that is powered by the IBM Blockchain Platform. IBM Food Trust enables a network of participants across the food supply chain to collaborate and securely share permissioned data to improve the traceability and safety of food that is brought to market.
App Connect
Enterprise as a Service connector
-
Local connector in
containers (Long Term Support Cycle-3 release) 13.0.7.0-r1 or later Deprecated -
Local
connector in containers (Continuous Delivery release)
-
Local connector in containers (Long Term Support Cycle-2 release)
The following information describes how to use IBM App Connect to connect IBM Food Trust to your other applications.
Supported product and API versions
To find out which product and API versions this connector supports, see Detailed System Requirements on the IBM Support page.
Connecting to IBM Food Trust
To connect App Connect to an IBM Food Trust account that you want App Connect to use, you need the following connection details. If necessary, work with the Food Trust Account Administrator of your organization to obtain these details.
IBM Food Trust connection fields:
- URL
- The base URL for the IBM Food Trust Connector API; for example,
https://food.ibm.com/ift/api/connector- Required: True
- Default value: https://sandbox.food.ibm.com/ibmfoodtrust/api/connector
- API key
- The API key used to generate an access token for App Connect
- Required: True
- Organization ID
- The Organization ID used to generate an onboarding token for making API calls to IBM Food Trust
- Required: True
- The following example shows the completed fields to connect to IBM Food
Trust from App Connect.
To connect to a IBM Food Trust endpoint from the App Connect Designer page for the first time, expand IBM Food Trust, then click Connect.
Before you use the account that is created in App Connect in a flow, rename the account to something meaningful that helps you to identify it. To rename the account on the Applications and APIs page, select the account, open its options menu (⋮), then click Rename Account.
What should I consider first?
Before you use App Connect Designer with IBM Food Trust, take note of the following considerations:
- App Connect supports version 2.0 of the IBM Food Trust Connector API, which is used to upload asset data in XML format or certificate data in JSON format from client systems to the IBM Food Trust solution.
- To successfully upload data to IBM Food Trust, you need to be registered with IBM Food Trust and assigned the Onboarding Team Member role. Consult your IBM Food Trust Account Administrator for further details.
- To use IBM Food Trust as a target application in a flow, you can choose from a set of actions that enable you to update or create records in the Food Trust ledger.
- (General consideration) You can see lists of the trigger events and
actions that are available on the Applications and APIs
page of the App Connect Designer.
For some applications, the events and actions depend on the environment and whether the connector supports configurable events and dynamic discovery of actions. If the application supports configurable events, you see a Show more configurable events link under the events list. If the application supports dynamic discovery of actions, you see a Show more link under the actions list.
- (General consideration) If you are using multiple accounts for an application, the set of fields that is displayed when you select an action for that application can vary for different accounts. In the flow editor, some applications always provide a curated set of static fields for an action. Other applications use dynamic discovery to retrieve the set of fields that are configured on the instance that you are connected to. For example, if you have two accounts for two instances of an application, the first account might use settings that are ready for immediate use. However, the second account might be configured with extra custom fields.
Events and actions
IBM Food Trust events
These events are for changes in this application that trigger a flow to start completing the actions in the flow.
IBM Food Trust actions
Your flow completes these actions on this application.
| Object | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Basic party registration | Update or create basic party registration | Update or create operation for an IBM Food Trust basic party registration |
| Certificates | Update or create certificates | Update or create operation for IBM Food Trust certificates |
| Despatch advice | Update or create despatch advice | Update or create operation for an IBM Food Trust despatch advice |
| EPCIS aggregation event | Update or create EPCIS aggregation event | Update or create operation for an IBM Food Trust Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) aggregation event |
| EPCIS extension | Update or create EPCIS extension | Update or create operation for an IBM Food Trust Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) extension |
| EPCIS object event | Update or create EPCIS object event | Update or create operation for an IBM Food Trust Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) object event |
| Item data notification | Update or create item data notification | Update or create operation for an IBM Food Trust item data notification |
| Purchase order | Update or create purchase order | Update or create operation for an IBM Food Trust purchase order |
| Receiving advice | Update or create receiving advice | Update or create operation for an IBM Food Trust receiving advice |
Model Context Protocol (MCP) support
The IBM Food Trust connector supports MCP, and all IBM Food Trust actions for the listed objects can be added to an MCP server as tools. For more information on how to configure an MCP server, see Creating and managing MCP servers.