Getting started with API Workflows: three use cases to unlock

Introduction

Today, developers are under pressure to move faster, integrate more systems, build smarter logic, and support agentic use cases. They need seamless integration, real-time data synchronization, and scalable automation. Developers are forced to need full coverage, from AI to API and RPA, to orchestrate hundreds of apps and systems. Agentic automation requires APIs to interact with systems quickly and predictably. APIs are the backbone of agentic automation, and without it you can get so far.

UiPath API Workflows offer a solution to these challenges by enabling solution architects to build, deploy, and reuse secure, real-time API automations. API Workflows powers the agentic offering with its complex data manipulation, and simplified interface. By leveraging API Workflows, organizations can cut latency, reduce infrastructure costs, and enhance security and governance, all within the UiPath Platform.

Key features and benefits

API Workflows offer a range of features that make them an ideal solution for developers and engineers looking to build modern, scalable integrations within the UiPath Platform:

• Visual design experience: Design robust workflows with the power and flexibility you need in a unified experience – going beyond traditional iPaaS solutions or low-code “recipe” integrations.

• Connect everything: Execute API workflows in real time using a lightweight, serverless runtime. Seamlessly integrate with UiPath Integration Service using prebuilt connectors, or extend capabilities with Connector Builder to create custom, reusable connectors. For custom systems, you can call raw REST APIs using HTTP activities, unlocking full flexibility.

• Built-in JavaScript support: Easily transform data within workflows using JavaScript expressions, enhancing flexibility and simplifying complex logic.

• Deterministic, multi-step workflows: Build reusable, versioned workflows that scale efficiently and execute consistently. Integration works as a security boundary and agents act on the right data at the right time.

• Deep UiPath Platform integration: API Workflows are fully integrated with the UiPath ecosystem. Leverage Data Fabric to connect and transform enterprise data across workflows, and orchestrate automations by triggering Robots or interacting with Agents, enabling end-to-end automation scenarios.

Explore use cases

With great power comes great responsibility. Or with a great product comes great use cases. Here are some top use cases of how developers and engineers can leverage UiPath API Workflows in their day-to-day work.

Build a composite HR service with Workday

Need to retrieve data, organizational structure, or reporting relationships from Workday? With API Workflows, you can create a reusable service that pulls employee data, transforms it, and returns a clean response – all with deterministic logic.

How it works

1. Create a new API workflow: Start up UiPath Studio and create a new API workflow. This provides a serverless, scalable canvas for orchestrating your integration logic without managing infrastructure.

2. Define the input JSON structure: Start by defining the input arguments, such as the employee’s first and last name. By explicitly defining the JSON schema, consuming applications and agents know exactly how to call the workflow – ensuring clarity and consistency across integrations.

3. Retrieve worker details: Retrieve the employee record from Workday. This can be done using the prebuilt Workday connector through Integration Service, making it fast and easy, or via raw HTTP calls when full flexibility is needed to consume APIs beyond packaged activities.

4. Fetch supervisory organization details: Now let’s query Workday for the employee’s organization structure. Here, API Workflows provide deterministic logic for consistently retrieving structured data across multiple runs.

5. Get manager and peers: Pull information about the employee’s manager and peers, enabling downstream processes (like approvals, reporting, or agent queries) to surface insights in real time.

6.Get direct reports: Similarly, it retrieves direct reports to provide a complete view of the employee’s relationships within the organization – data that can be reused across multiple applications or agents.

7. Transform the data: The raw Workday data is transformed into a simplified structure (e.g. names, email addresses). Here, built-in JavaScript support gives developers the flexibility to manipulate data in line, without additional tooling.

8. Return a structured response: Finally, the workflow outputs a clean, standardized response that can be consumed consistently across agents, apps, or other workflows. You only build it once, then you can reuse it everywhere.

This use case is particularly useful for organizations looking to integrate their HR systems, such as Workday, with other applications. You can see how UiPath API Workflows provide seamless, automated data exchanges for robust, scalable, and maintainable integrations.

Retrieve tickets from Zendesk

Support teams need to monitor customer issues across multiple channels – and fast. But going into ticketing systems such as Zendesk and doing things manually slows everything down.

With UiPath API Workflows, you can easily automate the retrieval and processing of customer support tickets. Even more, once you build an API workflow that connects to Zendesk, pulls ticket data, and extracts key information for analysis, you can share the output with robots or agents and process everything using natural language prompts – no more navigating complex systems.

How it works

1. Define the input schema: Define the input schema (e.g., customer email, ticket status). By explicitly modeling the input JSON, you make the workflow self-describing – ensuring that agents, apps, or other workflows know exactly how to call it.

2. (Best practice) Set up a test configuration: Validating your workflow ensures deterministic integration logic, so that it consistently behaves the same way when consumed across different scenarios.

3. Add the Zendesk 'Search' activity: Incorporate the Zendesk connector through UiPath Integration Service for quick setup with prebuilt activities. If you’re not using Zendesk and can’t find your ticketing system in the list of prebuilt connectors, you can also fall back on raw HTTP calls or build your own connector using Connector Builder.

4. Configure the search activity: Define the query parameters (e.g., customer email or ticket status). This abstracts complexity from consuming applications or agents, which in turn only need to supply simple inputs while the workflow handles the API details.

5. (Best practice) Handle validation and failure responses: Implement checks and error handling to guarantee reliability. Deterministic error management ensures workflows are robust and predictable when scaled to production.

6. Process tickets: Loop through the retrieved tickets, extract key details (like subject, status, and priority), and generate clean ticket objects. Here, JavaScript expressions can be used to transform and standardize the data for downstream consumption. For example:

7. Publish: Finally, publish the API workflow to make it available as a composable service. From there, it can be embedded into apps or invoked directly by agents – which is exactly what we’ll explore next.

Create a customer analysis agent

Now let’s put it all together. With API Workflows and Agents, you can build an agent that answers real questions like: “What’s the current status of all unresolved tickets for this customer?”

While agents shine at surfacing insights and accelerating decision making at scale, API Workflows can provide deterministic interactions with enterprise systems and reliable data transformations, providing consistent and actionable information for agents, robots, or apps.

This approach allows support teams to work seamlessly with live data, identify trends, and improve service quality – all while embedding deep agentic capabilities from across the UiPath Platform.

How it works

1. Create a new agent project: Start in UiPath Studio by creating a new Agent project.

2. Add input and output schemas for the agent: Open the Data Manager, check that you are on the Input tab, and add a property named "query." By explicitly defining inputs and outputs, you make the agent predictable and reusable. Any consuming app, workflow, or other agent knows exactly how to interact with it—ensuring consistency across the platform.

3. Configure agent prompts: Configure prompts so the agent can interpret natural language instructions. Developers can interact with complex system integrations through simple requests, without needing technical expertise.

4. Add API workflow tool: Connect the published Zendesk API Workflow into the agent as a tool. This demonstrates the composable services model: the API Workflow abstracts raw API calls into a deterministic service, and the agent simply consumes it—whether retrieving ticket history, summarizing issues, or analyzing trends.

5. Test the agent: Run a query like “Give me the status of all tickets that are not closed for [org] and provide a summary of each issue.” The agent uses the API workflow to retrieve live Zendesk data, process it, and return structured results in real time. This validates the serverless, scalable execution of the workflow and confirms the agent can act on top of it.

API Workflows enable organizations to tackle complex integration challenges with ease. Key use cases include:

• Data consistency across systems: Keep data synchronized across multiple applications, reducing manual reconciliation and data inconsistencies. For example, sync customer profiles between Salesforce, Zendesk, and internal CRM tools, or align financial records between billing systems and ERPs like NetSuite or SAP.

• Multi-step process automation: Build integrations that span multiple systems and require complex logic, enabling seamless automation of end-to-end processes.

• Composite services as APIs: Abstract complex data logic and workflows behind clean, reusable endpoints, making it easier to manage and maintain integrations.

With UiPath API Workflows, organizations can now experience the power of API-first automation. Join us in shaping the future of API integrations and discover how API Workflows can transform your business.