Managing database collections and leveraging the data within them to create dynamic content for your web application are important features that Velo provides to help you add more interactive functionality to your site. While you will often want to use the information stored in your database exclusively with your own site or application, there are also many instances where it’s valuable to make that data available to 3rd party sites or services. One way to do this is via HTTP functions.

HTTP functions are used to expose an API of your sites functionality, which means other people can write code to consume that functionality by calling the functions of the API that you define. The API provides the necessary framework to receive HTTP requests from external services and packages the data accordingly.

For example, a hotel or room rental service may want to share availability with an external booking service, a store could share its inventory with an external marketplace, or a fitness instructor may want to make their schedule available to other partners.

For developers building web applications for businesses, making data accessible means their projects can communicate with the ecosystem of partners relevant to that industry. In order to facilitate these kinds of business interactions, we created a methodology for exposing Wix data to external sites and services with HTTP functions. You can see how to integrate HTTP functions into your web application with Velo in the video tutorial below.

To learn more, read this article on HTTP functions, or refer to our API reference. You can also find additional video tutorials on our support section, or you can join the conversation by contributing to the Velo forum.