Connect your own systems

10 lessonsIntermediateIntegrationsCustom toolsAutomationsWebhooksVendasta API

Estimated time · about 2 hours 10 minutes|Required · A Partner Center account, A test account you have created, with a calendar connected, An AI Employee deployed in that account

Objective

One AI Employee for a home-services client: it books jobs on a real calendar, saves every lead to the CRM, and checks the weather before it confirms outdoor work. You build it end to end, one confirmed piece at a time, then hand it off to an automation, wire it to your own systems, and read the lead it captured back through the API.

Outcomes

✓You can tell what the platform already does from what has to be built, and reach for the lightest option that works

✓You have a working custom tool, briefed with a prompt that gives it judgment, and tested where it actually runs

✓You can send data out with a webhook and start an automation from outside

✓You have made a real API call against your own data, and you know what changes in production

✓You can wire a booking into a system your client already runs, and scope the work first

Three of these steps need no code at all: Start with what the platform already does, Hand off to the automation, and Put your workforce on autopilot. Everything in them happens in Partner Center settings and the automation builder. The rest of the path reaches outside the platform: a custom tool, a webhook, a scoped API token, and a booking into a system your client already runs.

What you will learn

Start with what the platform already does

Connectability, the ladder from a setting to custom code, and proof the built-in half works.

Key topics:

What decides whether a system can be connected
The six rungs, lightest first
Naming the one job left over

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Build a custom tool

A working call becomes a custom tool, and a prompt gives it judgment.

Key topics:

The cURL import and the four parts
Parameter descriptions and Set by AI
The four-part capability prompt

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Test the tool

Test where it runs, read what it actually did, and isolate a failing call.

Key topics:

Both directions, fired and quiet
Reading the Explanation view
Isolating a broken call outside the platform

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Hand off to the automation

Trigger scope, guarding a trigger, and the follow-through worker.

Key topics:

Why a step is missing from the list
Guarding a trigger with a condition
Activities the next automation can act on

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Put your workforce on autopilot

Automations that run when nobody is in the conversation.

Key topics:

Building a smart list that triggers automatically
Pairing a list with an automation
Reading the log before assuming something broke

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Send data out with a webhook

Push instead of poll: send data out, and start an automation from outside.

Key topics:

The Send a webhook step
Reading the payload before you build on it
Starting an automation with one call

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Call the API yourself

A real call against your own data, in the browser, with no code.

Key topics:

Generating a scoped token
Narrowest scopes, and the two errors
Reading back the lead your build captured

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Book into an outside system

A booking that has to land in the scheduling system your client already runs.

Key topics:

Two levels of key, and what each opens
Three calls, and the shortcut that skips one
The identity check a cancellation needs

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When to hand off to a developer

The custom-code line, handing it off well, and productizing what you built.

Key topics:

Keeping changeable logic out of code
The developer surface, and what is not on it
Vendor Center and the walls that are not technical

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