Connections is where you link UnifyApps to the outside world. Every external system your Ontology models, your Data Catalog indexes, or your Pipelines move data through has to be reached somehow — a connection is that reach. Before any of those areas can see or use your data, a connection has to exist and stay healthy.

Overview

A connection is your authenticated link to an external application or system — a saved, named instance of a connector, holding the credentials it needs to act on your behalf. Think of the connector as the app template (Salesforce, Slack, a database, or any other supported system), and the connection as your specific, authorized access to that app — for example, "My Salesforce Account." You set up a connection once, and from then on, your Ontology, Data Catalog, Pipelines, and any automations or AI agents you build can reuse it whenever they need to talk to that system. They simply reference the connection, and the platform supplies the stored credentials behind the scenes.

You can have more than one connection to the same type of app — a production Salesforce and a sandbox Salesforce, for instance — each with its own credentials and its own name, so you always know which one you're using.

Active and Inactive status

A connection isn't something you set up once and forget. After you authenticate it, the platform periodically tests it in the background to confirm the credentials still work. While those tests pass, the connection shows as Active. If the tests start failing — because a token was revoked, a password changed, or access was removed on the external system's side — the connection flips to Inactive, so you know at a glance that it needs attention.

For apps using expiring tokens, such as OAuth, the platform refreshes the token automatically as it nears expiry, so the connection keeps working without action from you. When a connection does go Inactive, you reconnect it by re-authenticating, and it returns to Active once the credentials are valid again.

Why this matters: anything built on top of a connection — an Ontology object, a catalog source, a pipeline step — depends on that connection staying Active. Keeping an eye on status helps you catch a broken link before it breaks something downstream.

Explore the Connections area

Connections is organized into a handful of focused areas, each covering one part of the lifecycle:

• Connections list — browse, search, and act on every connection you have access to, with each one's app and status visible at a glance.

• Create, edit, clone, and share — set up a new connection by picking an app and authenticating; rename or re-authenticate an existing one; copy a connection without repeating authentication; or give teammates access by assigning them a role.

• Health and settings — see how a connection is behaving over time, understand why it went Inactive, and configure behavior like rate limiting, circuit breaking, and telemetry.

• Dependencies and activity — check what else in the platform relies on a connection before you change or remove it, and review its change history.

Most of your time here is spent in the list, viewing what's connected and its status, and in the create flow, adding something new. The rest is there for when you need to manage, troubleshoot, or hand a connection off to someone else.

Notes

• A connector and a connection aren't the same thing — the connector is the app type, the connection is your authenticated instance of it. You always create a connection from a connector.

• Deleting or disconnecting a connection can affect anything downstream that references it, so check its dependencies first.

• An Inactive connection doesn't necessarily mean your data is lost — it usually just means the credentials need to be refreshed by reconnecting.