OAuth

OAuth allows K2 to interact with OAuth-enabled services (such as SalesForce, LinkedIn, SharePoint, Twitter and other systems that use OAuth as an authorization mechanism) on behalf of a user. OAuth is effectively protocol that allows users to approve an application to act on their behalf, without the system storing their username and password. (To learn more about OAuth, please see the wikipedia article on OAuth.)

Some Service Brokers such as the EndPoints WCF and EndPoints WebService brokers support OAuth authentication. Before you can select the OAuth Authentication mode, however, you need to configure the necessary OAuth settings. The configuration consists of the following steps:

1. Configure the external OAuth-enabled service and obtain OAuth settings.
   (For most OAuth enabled services, like LinkedIn or Twitter, you first need to create an application on their platform, which is the integration entry point. As a part of creating the application you receive an application ID and a client secret along with the endpoint URI to communicate with. Once you have the required communication parameters and application configuration values, you are ready to create the K2 OAuth Resource Type and OAuth Resource.)
2. Add a new K2 OAuth Resource Type in the Resource Types node, and define the Resource Type Parameters for the Resource Type.
3. Use the Resources node to add and configure a new K2 OAuth Resource of the Type defined in Step 2, and configure the Resource Parameter Values
4. Add and configure a new Service Instance for the Service Type, select the OAuth authentication mode and select the new K2 OAuth Resource created in Step 2 as the OAuth Resource to use when connecting to the target system.

The OAuth nodes in the Management Site allow you to add, edit or delete Resource Types and Resources, and view and remove stored OAuth Tokens.