JSON

The JSON template data source allows you to show data from a json-formatted file.

note

Expected encoding is UTF8

Configuration

Setting	Description	Example
JSON Link	The complete URL to the JSON file including protocol	http://server/data.json
Fetch test data	Fetches data to Template Creator from the configured link. The link text will light up green on success. Fetching data makes it possible to select JSONPaths from the data when creating bindings.
Data Update Time	Time in seconds between updates Restrictions (regardless of set value) Server requests: 5 minutes Direct requests: 2 seconds	3600
Special request headers	HTTP header key and value pairs	Key = Authorization Value = Bearer XyzXyzXyzXyz
Use direct requests	Enable to request data direct from source instead of proxying through Smartsign Server Server fetched data is cached by the server for 10 minutes for load balancing and security. Direct fetched data is subject to browser security rules https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS	False
Data transformation script	Careful! Programming knowledge required. It's possible to transform/manipulate the data before showing it by providing a script here. The JSON data is available in the variable "input" Moment.js is available to work with date/time. The function must return the data when the transformation is completed.	function(input, moment, smartsign) { // do your transformation here // ex: input['myvar3'] = input['myvar1'] - input['myvar2']; return input; }

JSONPath notation

JSONPath is a query language for JSON. A JSONPath expression specifies a path to an element in a JSON structure.

JSONPath expressions, including property names and values, are case-sensitive.

Paths use the dot notation: $.store.book[0].title

Expression	Description
$	The root object or array.
.property	Selects the specified property in a parent object.
[n]	Selects the n:th element from an array. Indexes are 0-based.

Iterators

An index, as referred to by 'n' in the above table, may be replaced with an iterator expression.
Doing so means the index referred to by 'n' will start at 0 and then increment at an interval.

Example:
[(iterator(20))]
Means 'n' starts at 0 and increments by 1 every 20 seconds.

Publishing a JSON file using Smartsign

Typically the source of the json-file comes from an external system or API and it's already available via http(s).

Sometimes this link cannot be reached directly from the Smartsign server or a screen. In such a scenario it's possible to store the file to the Smartsign Media library and re-publish it from there in order to make it accessible where needed.

You can upload the file to the media library manually or by using Smartsign Sync (min version 10.22.1).

Once the file is uploaded, view the resulting media item and go to the Advanced tab.

Enable the setting Allow anonymous access.

Once enabled, a Permalink will generate and show.

This link will not change if you update or replace the file and can be used to fetch the files content from template creator.