There are three different categories of connectors in Less: OAuth, token-based and without authentication. As you might have guessed, the key difference lies in how you authenticate with the given system to allow Less to extract data on your behalf.

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OAuth

OAuth is short for Open Authorization and is essentially an automatic way to give access to third-party solutions like Less. If you’ve ever seen a pop-ups that ask “Allow XYZ application to read user data…” it’s probably an OAuth authorization.

You connector might fail if you don’t have the right permissions in the system you’re trying to extract data from. In other words, if you’re working with HubSpot and you’re user account in HubSpot doesn’t have permissions to connect integrations (like Less), your connector in Less will fail.

Whenever you see an image similar to the one below, you’re using OAuth to extract data. It should be relatively simply; all you need to do is log in via the link button. You’ll be redirected back to Less after authenticating.

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Token-Based

Tokens-based connectors rely on you manually creating a token in the system you’re trying to extract data from. Customer.io (below) is an example of a connector where you have to create a token in Customer.io and copy/paste it into Less in order to authenticate.

We encrypt data tokens everywhere so you can safely input your API tokens

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Without Authentication

The last category are typically public data sources or mock datasets created by Less. These don’t require any authentication. Examples include the Product Analytics dataset or the Demo Data connector.