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Local agents are used for on-premise connectors that cannot be accessed through the cloud. Chift has developed a local agent that can be run on on-premise connectors’ servers and that will act as a proxy between your server and Chift’s infrastructure making it possible to expose an API on top of those connectors.
This is typically used for connectors like Winbooks, Sage 100, Sage 50, etc.

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How it works

The local agent does not require any specific network configuration. It will connect to Chift’s cloud infrastructure and it will not expose any port to the internet.

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Setting up a local agent

Typically the process to set up a local agent is the following:
  1. The consumer visits the public connection page of a connector and clicks on “Connect”.
  2. The consumer will have the possibility to download a zip file or send a link to this zip file to another person (useful when the installation needs to be done by a third-party) Setup local agent
  3. At this moment the consumer will have a connection which is not yet operational. Local agent not operational
  4. The consumer or their technical contact extracts the zip file and installs the Setup.exe file (alongside a settings.json file containing the information related to this specific connection). This will install a Windows service on the server on which the connector is running that will act as a bridge with Chift.
  5. Once the service is installed, the connection will become green on the consumer’s dashboard and you will be able to execute requests.
  6. At any time, you can see the status of the local agent and its latest heartbeat. You can also configure webhooks to be notified of the local agent’s status.
For every connector, you will find specific documentation in the connector’s documentation and as well in the end-user connector’s documentation to ease the process of installation.

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Monitoring a local agent

Through the Chift dashboard, you can see the status of the local agent and its latest heartbeat (sent every 15-20 minutes).
On a consumer’s page, you will see whether the agent is:
  • Online and operational: green
  • Offline: orange (it’s installed but not running currently)
  • Offline: red (the service is not installed)
Because a local agent might be down, we recommend using a retry mechanism or implementing webhooks.

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Cockpit

The Chift Cockpit can be used to configure your connections running on an on-premise server (or computer). You can find more information on how it works here Setup cockpit