Those familiar with software development, web services, and the Asset Management user interface can use REST API integrations to perform more complex operations.

1.  Navigation:
2. Admin View
3. Integration Settings
4. API and SSO Information

What is API?

An API, or application programming interface, is a set of rules that define how applications or devices can connect to and communicate with each other. A REST API is an API that conforms to the design principles of the REST, or representational state transfer architectural style.

REST APIs communicate via HTTP requests to perform standard database functions like creating, reading, updating, and deleting records (also known as CRUD) within a resource.

API and Asset Management

REST API provides you with programmatic access to your data in Asset Management (formerly TIPWeb-IT). The flexibility and scalability of REST API makes it an excellent choice for integrating with your other applications and for performing complex operations on a large scale. However, understanding and using REST API requires basic familiarity with software development, web services, and the Asset Management user interface.

You can use any tool or development environment that can make REST requests. If you have many records to process, consider using REST API, which is optimized for large sets of data.

Read, write, update, or delete operations performed using the API on the customers instance are executed on the live production database and in real time. Any changes made to the instance and its database will take effect immediately and are irreversible.

You can access API documentation online.

Common Uses of the API and Asset Management

You can set up and use REST API in many ways, including the following most used capabilities:

View Assets Issued to Students/Staff

Fields accessible from the API response:

• Tag Number
• Serial Number
• Site Name
• Student/Staff Name
• Asset Status
• Product Name
• Product Type
• Manufacturer
• Model
• Suggested Price
• Due Date
• Date Issued
• Accessories (Name, Description, Price)

Update the Status of an Existing Tag Issued to a Room (not Student/Staff)

Room Status updates available from the API:

• Auctioned
• Available
• Disposed
• In Repair
• In Use
• Lost
• Recycled
• Returned To Vendor
• Sold
• Stolen
• Surplus
• Used For Parts

Set Up Authentication

Your API URL, secret key, and passphrase needed for API authentication can be found by accessing Asset Management.

1. Log in with Admin credentials to the district view of Asset Management.
2. From the left navigation menu under the "Management" sub-header, click District Settings.
3. When the "Manage District Settings" modal window appears, navigate to the "API and SSO Information" section.
4. Note your API URL, secret key, and passphrase needed for API authentication.

To successfully send requests, REST API requires an access token obtained by authentication.
Users of REST API can authenticate by providing a key and phrase to the REST API login resource with the HTTP POST method. A JWT bearer token is generated that enables the user to authenticate future requests.

The bearer token remains active for a period of 8 hours from the time that it is issued (the time that the AuthorizeAPI call is made successfully). After it expires, APIs that rely on the token will not work until after the AuthorizeAPI call is made successfully once again, thereby getting a new bearer token.

Walk Through the Sample Code: Get the Version

To retrieve information about the Asset Management version, submit a "Home Request." You can copy and paste this example to send them with cURL. But first, replace "TIPWebAPI_URL" in the base URI with your application domain.

A public "test" API allows users to test whether the API is active or not. In this case, the request doesn’t require authentication.

curl --location -g '{{TIPWebAPI_Url}}/api/Home' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json'

The output from this request returns a JSON that includes the version number of the API.

If the API has not been activated for the application URL, please contact Frontline customer support.