We run an events data based system and a customer needs to integrate with us via their QuickBooks. Using Node JS we've managed to build a basic API where they can OAuth, and we can start querying their API. They have a "Job Title" field which is integral for us to read in order to split users into the correct groups for our business logic, but we cannot seem to find or query this field at all.
Is there a specific place we can instruct them to store the "Job Title" of an employee so that we can pull it via the API? Or does anyone have any other clues/ideas as to how to integrate with this? The QB API seems like it's really falling out of support...
Wanted to know what kind of info is exposed with linked-in api?. Particularly I want to know how may levels of connection info it exposes (I mean first, second ...etc)?. Are there any ready made test tools or web page which does this (to see what data being exposed)?
Whatever level of information the user has specified for show.
But in most cases, it will be name, location, job title, company, past companies, education. You can also drill in to information such as your contacts.
I would checkout https://developer.linkedin.com/
you can get 1st and 2nd degree network (connections)
I'm building my first REST API (at least trying) for a personal project.
In this project there are resources called players which hold can be in a team. According to REST API design rulebook a resource should be made either to be a document or a store and one should keeps these roles as segregated as possible.
Yet I would like to append some metadata to the team resource, eg the date the team was founded. Is it okay then for GET /teams/atlanta to return this metadata (making it a document) alongside the list of players in the team (making it a store).
Is this a good idea? If so why? If not why not and how to solve this better?
I know there are no rules to developing a REST API, but there are good practices and I would like to adhere to those. Please also not that this is really my first REST API so pardon my ignorance if there is any.
I would recommend having GET /teams/atlanta return just the information about the team, such as the founding date that you mention, and then having GET /teams/atlanta/players return the list of players for that team. These distinctions become more important when you are presenting an API that uses HTTP methods other than GET.
For example, if you wanted to add a player to a team - this would be a lot easier if you could just POST a player object to /teams/atlanta/players than if you had to PUT the whole team object to /teams/atlanta every time you wanted to add one individual player.
If your API only allows retrieval of data, and if it is for a specific client application, there is an argument for combining all the team data into one object to save the client having to make additional requests for the data, but bear in mind that it is less flexible.
Your application may want to display a list of teams by calling GET /teams but you probably wouldn't want all of the player information included in each object in the list as this is quite a lot of data, but if GET /teams/atlanta returns player information then it would be inconsistent not to include it in the list version too.
I would personally favour splitting up the resources as I've suggested, and live with the fact the client may need to make an extra request or two.
EDIT: I've solved my issues (for now at least).
I've recently been working with the Zendesk REST Api and their use of the custom "X-On-Behalf-Of" header for looking up tickets opened by a particular user got me thinking about Restful Api design choices (in no specific language, more of a how to name URIs question). I've also read this related question on Custom HTTP headers, but it left me with more questions than answers.
Say I have an example restful web service dealing with rental apartment applications where clients use Basic Auth (keep it simple) to authenticate. Define the basic data as such:
Users (can be of type landlord or renter)
Forms (which consist of one or more Document resources and some form meta data like form name and version info)
And then some type of resource corresponding to Rental Applications, which ties together Forms, Applicants (one or more renters), Landlord, and some metadata like status and dates.
I'm struggling to properly model the URIs for the Applications resource in general, and more specifically with respect to a clients role. (assume api root is https://api.example.com/)
How do I allow a Landlord to fetch a list of applications sent to them? My intuition says make a request to "GET /applications" and Basic Auth lets the server know which user to build the list for; likewise "GET /applications" requested by a Renter would return a list of applications they've sent...but I'm not confident this is a solid design in general to mix and match sender vs. recipient lists at the same URI. Should I be thinking about the "/applications" resource differently, and perhaps allowing a hierarchy like "/applications/[USER_IDENTIFIER]" for each user instead?
Also, regardless of my applications URI design, assume a Landlord is able to create an application on behalf of a renter. Is this better accomplished by sending a custom header like "X-Create-On-Behalf-Of: somerenter#example.com" with the PUT/POST creation request? Or should my schema define a field which allows for this alternative scenario.
I'm very much an amateur at this, so I'm open to any criticism of my assumptions/design, as well as any pointers for learning more about designing RESTful api's. Thanks for reading.
I think I've found a solution.
Landlords and Renters are really just subclasses of the same object, which I'll call Party (as in party to a transaction, not birthday party). So then each one has their own resource, named like /party/PARTY_ID.
It's easy to extend this to see that /party/SOME_LANDLORD/applications and /party/SOME_RENTER/applications solve my issues. It also removes my need to consider custom headers.
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I am working on a large project involving creating a worldwide hotel database with rich data such as Addresses, Images, Descriptions, Policies, Coordinates, Facilities, Reviews, Local area descriptions and their amenities etc.
I am looking for a public hotel API where I can both retrieve the data and run (preferably RESTful) real-time queries for specific locations and available rooms, and where I can subsequently let my customers make bookings.
Can anyone share experience, knowledge and possible guidelines for such a project, which APIs are suitable and what are the best practices?
In my search for hotel APIs I have found only one API giving unrestricted open access to their hotel database and allowing you to book their hotels:
Expedia's EAN http://developer.ean.com/
You need to sign for their affiliate program, which is very easy.
You get immediate access to their hotel databases plus you can make availability/booking requests with several response options, including JSON, which is more convenient and lightweight than the (unfortunately) more widespread XML.
As you immediately access their API, you can start developing and testing, but still need their approval to launch the site, basically to make sure it provides the needed quality and security, which is reasonable.
They also offer "deep linking", i.e. you may customize your requests by adding parameters. Then if it sufficient for your purpose (for mine it is not), you don't even need to store their content on your server.
I have also signed for HotelsCombined program:
(link removed as this site doesn't seem to let me put more links)
However, they do not immediately allow you to use their API even for testing. From their answer:
"Apologies for the inconvenience caused, but it’s simply a business decision to limit access to our rich hotel content. Please kindly check back within the next 2-3 months, where we will be able to judge your traffic, and in turn judge your status on standard data feeds."
I have also signed for Booking.com affiliate program:
(link removed as this site doesn't seem to let me put more links)
Unfortunately, again, they limit access, from their answer:
"Please do note that, since there's a high amount of time and cost involved in the XML integration, we are only able to offer the XML integration to a small amount of partners with a high potential."
I did not explore Tripadvisor as they seem only to offer top 10 hotels and only as widgets, but most importantly for me, they wouldn't allow booking through them.
I've checked the hotelbase.org mentioned above, they have very extensive list but not as rich as by Expedia, also they don't seem to have images and don't allow booking either.
I've used the TripAdvisor API before and its suited me well. It returns, per destination, a list of top-rated hotels, along with options to retrieve reviews, photos, nearby restaurants and a couple other useful things.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/help/what_type_of_tripadvisor_content_is_available
From the API page (available API content) :
* Hotel, attraction and restaurant ratings and reviews
* Top 10 lists of hotels, attractions and restaurants in a destination
* Traveler photos of a destination
* Travelers' Choice award badges for hotels and destinations
To expand upon #nstehr's answer, you could also use Yahoo Pipes to facilitate a more granular local search. Go to pipes.yahoo.com and do a search for existing hotel pipes and you'll get the idea..
HotelsCombined has an easy-to-access and useful service to download the data feed files with hotels. Not exactly API, but something you can get, parse and use. Here is how you do it:
Go to http://www.hotelscombined.com/Affiliates.aspx
Register there (no company or bank data is needed)
Open “Data feeds” page
Choose “Standard data feed” -> “Single file” -> “CSV format” (you may get XML as well)
If you are interested in details, you may find the sample Python code to filter CSV file to get hotels for a specific city here:
http://mikhail.io/2012/05/17/api-to-get-the-list-of-hotels/
Update:
Unfortunately, HotelsCombined.com has introduced the new regulations: they've restricted the access to data feeds by default. To get the access, a partner must submit some information on why one needs the data. The HC team will review it and then (maybe) will grant access.
You could probably trying using Yahoo or Google's APIs. They are generic, but by specifying the right set of parameters, you could probably narrow down the results to just hotels. Check out Yahoo's Local Search API and Google's Local Search API
Check out api.hotelsbase.org - its a free xml hotel api
No images as of yet though
Try Tixik.com and their API there. They have a very different data that big players, really good coverage mostly in Europe and good API conditions.
After several days of searching found the EAN API - http://developer.ean.com/ - it is a very big one, but it provides really good information. Free demos, XML\JSON format. Looks good.