FAQs

Find answers to some common questions on our FAQ page.

Product

What are the benefits of web automation over our dev team directly integrating APIs?

More often than not there just isn't an API for everything you'd like to transact with or gather data from. Web automation is often the only way. And if there are APIs as well, we can integrate those for you too. The Automation Cloud also offers rapid onboarding and consistency of integration vs. tasking your dev team to make direct integrations with APIs. We give you a single API for all your Suppliers. You will be able to add new suppliers without needing to complete new and sometimes difficult additional API integrations. It's generally much faster too. Once you have integrated our API you can normally have new suppliers available for use within 5 days.

What happens if a website goes down, or if there are changes to it?

Minor changes to websites generally don't cause many issues. However, we constantly monitor all our available suppliers. So, if changes are made to a website that affects our ability to interact with it, we're alerted and initiate a fix. We'll also be in close communication with you to update on progress.

Can you connect to APIs as well as interacting with websites?

Yes. Our tools allow any rest API to be integrated along with automating any website. You can combine these to consolidate all your connections under a single, consistent Automation Cloud API.

Can you share a list of all the suppliers that are already supported?

We can provide you with availability for your sector. Speak to us. Also, if you would like a Supplier we don't currently support we'd be more than happy to make it available to you.

What data can your Smart Feed product gather?

Pretty much anything that you can access on a website or from an existing API. This might be pricing data from multiple sources, other counts or long-form text from your target websites. We can operate on the open web, or with credentials you supply for intranets or internal systems. If there's data available on a website we can generally get it for you, at volume and scale.

Is the Smart Feed data real-time?

We deploy a number of strategies to ensure data freshness. We tend to run batches of data crawling jobs on a schedule that's optimised to track updates and changes. Get in touch and we will be able to speak you you in more details about this.

Why should we choose you over your competitors?

We're relatively peerless in the Web Automation platform, but we don't rest on our laurels. We're consistently looking for ways to improve our services. We work with our partners and we're constantly looking for ways to provide the most valuable service.

How long does a typical transaction take to process?

That depends what we're doing for you. A Smart Actions transaction might last anything from a minute to ten minutes, depending on how long your user is completing their journey in your app. If you're retrieving data from Smart Feed then each crawl we do will take a few seconds, though it'll be milliseconds to request data from our cache when your app needs it.

Can you connect to Intranets or websites and APIs behind a log-in?

Yes. We transact with closed back-office systems and intranets. We can generally sign-in to these as part of the interaction flow during an automation.

Can we see a live demo of the platform?

Yes! Feel free to get in contact and we can show you the platform in action and what it can bring to your website.

Are there any websites you can't connect?

Very few, though there may be the occasional website that our robots can't interact with due to technical constraints, or availability. However we're able to identify these sites during the discovery phase of onboarding.

What's your commercial model?

For Smart Actions we charge a monthly fee and also take a small percentage of each successful booking we process. For Smart Feed we charge per data point delivered. The aim of our pricing is to align with your business model. Speak to us about how this will work for you in practice.

Do you have any information which I can share internally?

Speak to us about material you can share with your team to communicate the benefits of the Automation Cloud.

Integration

Do we need to create multiple API integrations in order to have multiple suppliers?

No, you simply integrate using our library or API once and then you can access or connect with any supplier of your choice.

How long does it take to integrate your API?

It generally takes a small development team a short time to integrate against our API or using our libraries. We have known teams to take only two weeks. Our services are straightforward and we'll fully support you with your integration.

How do I get Smart Feed data?

We can deliver data in one of two ways. Either you access our API to retrieve it on demand. We can also provide systems which push data to you at a predetermined frequency.

How quickly can you onboard suppliers?

We can onboard suppliers normally within 5 days of making the request. The earlier we know about your supplier requests the sooner we can make them available for you. You'll work closely with our Customer Success team which means generally you'll experience no lag time with seamless planning.

What work is required from the supplier?

Nothing. All the work to connect your Supplier is on our side. They simply maintain their website with no alteration to their service.

How do we design and build the UI in our app or website?

If you're adding a full checkout for integration with our Smart Action product you can build the UI in the way make the mose sense and provides the best UX for your customers. We'll help you provide the right data to us within that flow so we can successfully interact with the Supplier in the Automation Cloud.

How long does it take you to provide a Supplier you don't currently have a connection for?

Generally it takes around 5 days to add a new Supplier. Our team balances requests across all our clients needs, so it may take a few days to arrange work on your request. Our Customer Success team will be able to give you more definite timeline for new Suppliers when you come on board with us.

Data & Security

Do you become the Data Controller of our customer data?

We only use customer data for the purpose of completing the transaction. Once that is completed, we delete all data. We are a data processor, and ensure the highest grade of security which is outlined in our agreements.

How do you process card payment information? Are you PCI Compliant?

We are Level 1 PCI Compliant, meaning we adhere to the strictest practices for cardholder data security and are externally assessed. We store cardholder data in a secure vault and then tokenise data used for each transaction. This ensures that no one is able to view card data on the platform. We've put significant effort into ensuring that we deliver the best in class security around card data and would be happy to discuss this with you in more detail.

Can we have details regarding your PCI status for our compliance team?

Yes. Get in touch and we'll share our PCI-DSS Attestation of Compliance.

How do you handle bot detection and captcha?

Our systems have been carefully designed to remain undetected as a robot. In most of our automations the underlying servers see us as a human actor. In the few instances where we do appear as a machine we have various techniques, including intelligent data routing, to remain able to interact with a Service. We may also speak to you about whitelisting our service for Suppliers you maintain a relationship with.

We have enhanced compliance needs, like supplying policy docs. Can you support this?

In general, with Smart Actions, we can supply anything in the transactional journey that you need to give to your users. So, if you need a policy wording PDF, or a particular snippet of legal text that's presented in the flow, we can supply this so you remain compliant.

If what you need to know isn’t listed just reach out and we’ll do our best to answer your question.

Need more help?

Get in touch

UBIO’s web connectivity platform enables web aggregators to access data otherwise unobtainable and carry out transactional automation.

Whether it’s for direct hotel rates, flight booking, insurance applications or job listings and applications, our technology can deliver it through a simple, low cost API to help our customers improve user experience, increase content and differentiate from their competition.