Connect your systems

This guide is for whoever sets up a new workspace. It says which connection each outside system needs and how to tell it works.

A connection stores what a block needs to sign in, once, so the secret never appears in an automation. Creating one needs the Workspace lead, Organization admin or Operations director role.

To add any connection, open Connections, click New connection, search or browse Choose a connection, fill it in and click Save connection. For a kind that signs in through another site, click Connect and finish in the window that opens.

To connect	Choose	Then use
An AI provider	A kind under AI	AI blocks and agents
A system with a REST API	A kind under APIs and authentication or OAuth	HTTP Request
A system with a SOAP API	A kind under APIs and authentication or OAuth	SOAP Request
A mailbox	Outlook email account, under Email	The Email received trigger
A storage bucket	S3-compatible object storage	Read S3 object and its family
Your own AI tools	Nothing here: see Connect an MCP client

Connect an AI provider

Pick your provider under AI, enter its API key or cloud credentials, and save. Usage runs on your account with that provider. The kinds named “compatible” also take a base URL, so they work with any service that speaks the same API. See Use AI blocks.

To read documents, choose a model that accepts PDFs or images. See Read data from a document.

Connect a transport management system

Lainstack has no general TMS connection. You connect to your TMS through whatever API it offers, in two directions.

To read from it or write to it, an automation calls the TMS:

1. Find out how its API signs requests, and add the matching connection: HTTP API key, Bearer token, HTTP basic, OAuth client credentials or OAuth authorization code.
2. Use HTTP Request for REST, JSON, XML and text APIs, or SOAP Request for SOAP services.

Only public http and https addresses can be called. A TMS reachable only inside your own network can’t be called this way.

To react to something in it, the TMS calls an automation. Give it a Webhook URL and a secret. If it can’t send webhooks, use a Schedule trigger and ask it for changes.

CargoWise

Lainstack Cloud also has a CargoWise eAdaptor Next connection, for the service URL, enterprise and server codes and client certificate that CargoWise issues, with blocks that read shipments and a trigger for shipment events. You find them under Blocks in this site’s menu, marked Cloud.

So far they have been checked only against test responses, not a live CargoWise tenant. Check them against your own test tenant before relying on them.

Connect a customs portal

Most customs systems are APIs with their own sign-in and strict message formats. For any of them:

1. Add the connection its API needs, as for a TMS.
2. Send messages with HTTP Request or SOAP Request. For an XML message, Upload XSD on HTTP Request builds the body from the portal’s schema files, and a body that does not match is not sent. Validate XML checks XML from elsewhere.
3. Put a person before the send when a mistake would be costly. See Put a person in the loop.

Some portals require a client certificate. The connections HTTP Request uses have no field for one, so check this with your portal first.

HMRC Customs Declarations

Lainstack Cloud also has an HMRC Customs Declarations connection, with blocks to send an import declaration and read a declaration’s status.

1. In the HMRC Developer Hub, create an application subscribed to Customs Declarations, Customs Declarations Information and Pull Notifications.
2. Add the connection, under OAuth. Choose the HMRC environment, Sandbox (Trade Test) or Production, and enter the Client ID and Client secret.
3. Click Connect. The trader grants access by signing in with Government Gateway.
4. Start on the sandbox. A draft run holds the send block, so publish and run the automation to test it.

Check that it works

Saving checks that the fields are filled in. It does not prove the other system accepts them. Some kinds have a test of their own, such as Test connection for object storage. Otherwise:

• For a connection that reads, add the block and click Run draft. A GET or HEAD request calls the real API.
• For a connection that writes, publish and run the automation against a test account. A draft run holds writes, so it proves nothing about them.

The Status column under Connections shows whether a connection is ready, for example Connected, Expired or Authorization revoked.

Next

• Call an outside API
• Read data from a document
• Connections and credentials