Deleting Data from a REST API 

(DELETE method) 
 
 

   

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Table of Contents 
Table of Contents 2 

Introduction 3 
Connect to an Environment 3 

Get to know the scenario 5 

Install the Contacts application 5 
Business Case Overview 5 

Consume a DELETE REST API Method 6 

Add the Delete option to the User Interface 9 

End Lab 15 

 

   

OutSystems Inc.​ 5
​ 901 Peachtree Dunwoody Road, N.E. Building C, Suite 495, Atlanta, GA 30328 2 
  

Introduction 
In this lab, we are going to integrate with a REST Web Service to allow to delete data in an 
external system. We are going to use the DELETE method to delete information of the Contacts 
in the external system. 

Connect to an Environment 
When we open Service Studio for the first time, we will need to connect to an ​environment 
where the OutSystems platform server generates, optimizes, compiles, and deploys 
OutSystems applications. 

1) Open Service Studio and access the ​Connect to Environment d

​ ialog​.​ This can be done 
in two ways. 

a) If you are not logged in to any environment, click on C

​ onnect to Environment​. 

b) If you are already logged in to an environment, select the ​Switch Environment... 

option from the Environment menu at the top. 

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2) Connect to your OutSystems personal environment. 

a) If you are using your Personal Environment, you can find its address in the 
OutSystems ​website​ and log in.  

b) Under the ​Platform​ tab and then under the P

​ ersonal Environment​ tab the 
environment address (or S
​ erver Address​) can be found.  

  

c) Back in Service Studio, use that Environment and login with your OutSystems 
community email (username) and password. 

   

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Get to know the scenario 

Install the Contacts application 

If you have completed the ​Reading Data from a REST Web Service (GET)​ exercise lab before 
you can skip this section and jump to the next page. Otherwise, follow the instructions below to 
install the quick start application. 

Open and publish the R

​ EST Contacts - DELETE.oap​ in your personal environment. The oap file 
can be found in the Resources folder.  

1) In the Applications, open the Environment menu and select ​Open Files…

2) In the Open dialog, change the File Type dropdown option to​ OutSystems Application 
Pack (*.oap)​ and then open the REST Contacts - DELETE.oap.  

3) Click Proceed when asked. 

4) Wait for the installation to complete and then proceed. 

Business Case Overview 

The REST Contacts application is a simple application, only containing a couple of Screens, 
Preparations, and some Screen Actions. We already list, create and update Employees on the 
screens. Now, we’ll create the logic to delete a Contact.  

The quick start application is simply to speed up the setup part and start working right away 
with the external REST web service. 

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Consume a DELETE REST API Method 

In OutSystems, integration with REST Services can be straightforward. OutSystems help us to 
generate all the methods and data structures needed to integrate with an external system. 

The DELETE request is known as a method to delete existing data from the external system. 

Before you consume any REST API it’s important to gather all the information you need from 
the REST API documentation. Information such as the expected structures and some examples 
maybe be really useful when consuming an external service. In this lab, the documentation for 
the external REST Web Service is available ​here​. 
In this section we will create the integration with the external REST Web Service. This 
integration in specific will allow to delete contacts from the external system. 

1) Open the Contacts module 

a) In the Applications list, locate the R
​ EST Contacts​ Web application and open it. 

b) Open the ​RESTContacts m

​ odule 

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2) Consume the DELETE method of the external REST Web Service. 

a) Switch to the Logic tab and in the Integrations folder, right-click the C
​ ontactsAPI 
REST​ ​element and select A
​ dd REST API Method...​. This opens a window to specify 
the REST method that you want to consume. 

 
b) Set the Method to D
​ ELETE ​and the URL to 

https://foundation.outsystems.net/ContactsAPI/rest/v1/contacts/{Email}/ 

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c) In the Body tab, leave the Request text area blank. In this method we are passing 
the information of the contact via the Email URL parameter. 

d) Set the Response text area to 

{ 
"Success": true, 
"ErrorMessage": "string" 
} 

NOTE​: This value can be obtained from the ​Documentation page​ of the Contacts 
API. 

e) Click the ​OK​ button to close the dialog window.   

OutSystems Inc.​ 5
​ 901 Peachtree Dunwoody Road, N.E. Building C, Suite 495, Atlanta, GA 30328 8 
  

Add the Delete option to the User Interface 

In this section we will modify the existing Contacts screen to allow to end users to delete a 
contact. In our sample app, the Contacts screen already displays the list of contacts and allows 
to edit each one of them. 

1) For each row on the existing Table Records, add a new icon and link it to the Delete 
Screen Action. 

a) In the Interface tab, open the C

​ ontacts ​Web Screen.  

b) On the Widgets toolbox, search for Icon, then Drag an Icon and drop it next to the 
Contact Name. 

c) Double-click the Name property of the Icon to open the Icon picker, then select 
the ​trash​ icon. 

NOTE​: Alternatively you may set also the Expression to 

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Entities.IconName.trash 

d) Right-click the Icon on the screen, and select ​Link to > Delete 

NOTE​: Optionally you can set the Confirmation Message property of the Link to 
ask the end-user for confirmation before actually deleting. In similar operations 
that may not be rolled back, this is considered a best practice. 

2) Create the Logic of the Delete screen action to delete the contact in the external system. 
In the case the operation fails, display a feedback message detailing the error. 

a) Open the ​Delete​ Screen Action. It is located under the Contacts screen, or you 
can also double-click the Link. 

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b) From the Logic tab, drag the ​DeleteContact A

​ PI method created before, and drop 
just after the start. 

c) Set the Email parameter to 

TableRecords1.List.Current.Email 

d) Drag an ​If​ and drop it between the D

​ eleteContact​ and the E
​ nd​. 

e) Set the ​Condition​ of the If to 

DeleteContact.Response.Success 

f) Drag a Run Server Action and drop it on the False branch 

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g) In the ​Select Action​ dialog choose the Feedback_Message 

h) Set the parameters of the Feedback_Message2 element as follows 

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i) Drag an ​End a
​ nd drop it to the right of the If, then connect both. 

j) The Delete screen action flow should look like this 

3) Publish the application using 1-Click Publish button and verify that the publish 
completed successfully in the 1-Click Publish Tab. 

a) Click on the 1
​ -Click Publish button​ to publish the module to the server. 

b) Verify in the 1-Click Publish tab that the publishing process was successful. 

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c) Preview the app in browser by clicking on the ​Open in Browser​ button. 

d) Click on the Trash icon of one of the contacts. 

e) If the operation was successful, the contact should not appear on the list, 
otherwise, a feedback message should highlight the error. 

   

OutSystems Inc.​ 5
​ 901 Peachtree Dunwoody Road, N.E. Building C, Suite 495, Atlanta, GA 30328 14 
  

End Lab 
In this lab, we integrated with a REST Web Service, namely the DELETE method to delete 
Contacts on the external system. 

To accomplish that, we have used the OutSystems visual interface to add an extra method that 
enables the deletion of a contact. Once the new method was added to the integration, the user 
interface and underlying logic was changed to allow to delete contacts. 

At the end of this exercise you should be able to integrate with a simple REST API to delete data 
in an OutSystems application. 

OutSystems Inc.​ 5
​ 901 Peachtree Dunwoody Road, N.E. Building C, Suite 495, Atlanta, GA 30328 15