Revision as of 19:29, 19 September 2012

Introduction

X2EngineCRM features a remote API for inserting, updating, querying and deleting records. The API is accessed via POST requests to the API controller (see: ApiController) and thus, URLs (after the domain name and relative path to the document root) for calls to the API will begin with index.php/api/. Instances of X2EngineCRM that were installed at version 1.6.6 and later should have this feature configured and ready for use; users who have upgraded from earlier versions should follow the instructions in Manual Configuration

Usage

The post data variables should be named according to the column names of the model for which the API being called. When making API calls, the same validation rules as in normal use of the app also apply. In the case that the input does not pass validation, the API will respond with the validation errors.

Authenticating

Using the API requires authentication credentials for the web application in the form of two post data fields authUser and authPassword, which contain the username of a user in the web application and the md5 hash of its password, respectively. Users who have installed X2EngineCRM at version 1.6.6 or later should have a user named "api" in their web application, created during the installation process and given a random password. The authentication details should be stored in webLeadConfig.php in the web root.

With a dedicated user for API authentication and access, and it should then be ready to use.

Available API functions

(See also the documentation on x2doc:ApiController)

The methods of x2doc:ApiController used for creating, querying, viewing (by ID), updating and deleting records are:

Specifying Model

The API requires specifying the model for which the transaction will be performed as a GET parameter with key "model". Per the URL format rule of X2EngineCRM, which is "path" (see CUrlManager for more information), the full URL of the request will be: index.php/api/[method]/model/[model name]. So, for example, an API call to create a new contact record should use index.php/api/create/model/Contacts

Manual Configuration

For users who installed at versions earlier than 1.6.6 and have upgraded, the following steps must be taken to configure the remote API:

1. Log in as admin
2. Create a new user with username "api", and make sure its status is set to "inactive".
3. Make note of the password that you enter for this user, and obtain the 32-character MD5 digest of it by one of the following means:
   • Use a third-party hash generation tool. We recommend this one, because the string to be hashed is not submitted to any remote server, but is calculated with client-side javascript.
   • Log into the database and obtain the generated password hash from the entry in table x2_users (i.e. by navigating to it in PHPMyAdmin), or run

     SELECT `password` FROM `x2_users` WHERE `username`='api'
     

   • If you have the PHP command line interface installed on your computer, obtain it with the command: echo md5("password")."\n";
4. Save the MD5 message digest for future reference.