API - what do you use it for?

  • 15 March 2023
  • 8 replies
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Hello! I’ve been told API can do a lot within Ti - but I don’t know what magic it can do yet! I don’t “speak” API language, so I’m not really sure what it is, but if you want to share what it does for you, maybe I can learn more about it!

Thanks!

 

 


8 replies

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There is a lot that can be done but we mostly use the API to do bulk updates in the system vs doing them one by one in the manager interface. Here are the most common ones we use today:

  • Adding new content to many panoramas at once
  • Disabling large lists of users
  • Moving users from one sublicense to another 
  • Giving learners a dual/manager role

Ti’s documentation is a good place to start - it has the technical info - but also has a short description of what is possible with each api endpoint https://api.thoughtindustries.com/#instructor-messages

Hi Christopher, 

Do you all have a DBA (or are you the DBA?) curious because we essentially have to wait in line for our IT/Engineering Team to create the scripts to power the API. 

 

In line with @Christopher.Hernley we use it basically for bulk actions. We for example have +400 sublicenses in a panorama, it’s difficult to manage all of these in the ‘front-end’.  

Possibilities are quite big:

Adding to @AMartin, I don’t think you need to be highly skilled to set up a simple GET or PUT request which can be reused for basic standard course operations. We (mainly L&D people) use Postman in combination with CSV files and that works quite well. I’ll be happy to share some pointers if you want!

Userlevel 3

Hi @AMartin - I am not a DBA but have found that we can still leverage the APIs even without one.  As @StijnVanLaer mentioned the tool Postman https://www.postman.com/ is a great way to send requests using the collection runner and a CSV data file. This is manually triggered, but works for our use case as we have not found a need for complete automation of these jobs. I’d also be happy to hop on a call and discuss if you like!

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@Christopher.Hernley @AMartin @StijnVanLaer 

I’m even less capable of doing this, since I’m not even sure what a DBA is🤣! I’m sharing this post with our IT contractor to see if he can assist me.

What we mostly would like to do is update tags on courses - do any of you know if that’s something that can be done via API? 

Thanks!

Userlevel 3

Hi @juliefiretech unfortunately I don't believe that updating tags is possible through the API - we too may need to do this in the near future so if anyone has suggestions would love to hear them! 

 

Anyone able to sync with me to review the API? I would like to set it up on my end. If so, please let me know when and I’ll virtually be there! 

Userlevel 1

We use the API to pull links and metadata for Articles and Videos into our Coveo Search Engine, this gives our customers a centralized search engine across our platforms.

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