Skip to content

Getting started

This section details the overall steps to leverage Keelvar's REST API in your planning and design.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:

Keelvar Organization Access: Gain API access by joining an organization within Keelvar's production or testing sandbox environments. If your organization is already registered, request access from your organizational admin. If your organisation is not registered or you otherwise need support, please contact your dedicated Customer Success Manager at Keelvar to help get setup.

API Key: To use the API, you'll need an API key associated with your Keelvar organization. See the Authentication page for details on how to obtain an API Key for your Keelvar organization.

Development Environment: Set up your own development environment that supports API integration. We recommend using a modern programming language and framework that can make HTTP requests and handle JSON responses.

Step 1: API Documentation

To begin, familiarize yourself with our documentation for the technical properties of our API, including:

These are important to keep in mind when making API requests to each endpoint, and for using the API response data.

Step 2: Authentication

To make requests to the Keelvar API, you need to authenticate your requests using your API Key. This involves including the API Key in the request headers. The Authentication page gives further details on how to send the API key with each request.

Step 3: Explore the API endpoints

Use the API reference to make simple API requests. For example, you can create new sourcing events and/or requests, and fetch data from previous sourcing events and/or requests.

Verify that you are receiving the expected response data and familiarize yourself with the API behavior. You can use a lightweight API platform for these preliminary test requests e.g. Postman.

Step 4: Implement Integration

After validating that Keelvar's API meets your requirements, begin planning and building the application that will send and receive data between your systems and the Keelvar API

  1. Intake Data: Plan, transform and map the data from your system to what is required by each API endpoint schema
  2. Error Handling: Review the API response codes and messages to handle them appropriately in your application
  3. Export Data: Format any relevant API response data to fit your downstream requirements

Step 5: Testing

Extensively test your integration to ensure that data is being exchanged correctly between your systems and Keelvar's Sourcing Optimizer or Autonomous Sourcing.

  1. Use Case Testing: Use test data and simulate various scenarios to validate the robustness of your integration.
  2. Response Validation: Validate API responses, ensuring they conform to the documented format
  3. Rate Limits: Ensure you monitor rate limits and retry requests when necessary

Keelvar provides a sandbox environment for testing to ensure testing doesn't interfere with your production environment.

Step 6: Go Live

Once you are ready to go live, follow the below to ensure a seamless transition to production:

  1. API Key: Generate and switch to a production API Key from the production Keelvar environment.
  2. Data References: Ensure you update any data references in your code to production - e.g. the bot reference when creating Sourcing Requests
  3. Monitoring: Monitor your application and implement logging and monitoring tools to track API usage and errors
  4. Deployment: Deploy your integration to begin leveraging Keelvar's REST API to optimize and automate your sourcing needs from your own business systems