To follow this guide, you need a demo account. Make sure it's fully set up according to our instructions on how to request a demo account.

Send a request

‌To communicate with our API, you'll need to build HTTP requests. You can use the programming language of your choice to achieve this. We provide examples of scripts using Python, but most of the content you'll work with will be in JSON.‌

Get your API access token

‌To gain access to our API, you will need your Client ID and Client Secret. Instructions for getting these values can be found in . You should take special precautions to keep your client secret a secret. In the example below (using our demo environment https://demo-api.certn.co), we show you how you can use secrets stored in a .env file.

First, make a request to get your access token. This token will be required to make all other API requests. For this step, make a GET request to our /token/ endpoint. If you're new to HTTP requests, visit for useful guides.

With everything set properly and a good internet connection, you should receive a response.status_code of 200 OK. The response.data object should look something like:

You'll need this access_token as a bearer token in headers for all requests to our API. Let's see how to use this to .

Errors

Please see and for more details on types of errors, and how to resolve them.

Contact the Certn Partnerships Team

To request a demo account, email Certn's Partnership Team at . They will arrange a call to learn about your organization's specific requirements and to help you set up your demo account.

Once created, you will be invited into your demo account via email, and prompted to create a password.

You'll need to know how to Get your access token before you can follow the instructions in this section.

Organizational structure

When you're set up within Certn, you belong to an organization. This organization has a few levels of hierarchy:

• Superteams

Superteams can have multiple Teams and Teams can have multiple Users. When you're added to Certn, you're linked to a Team, which is linked to a Superteam.

Authorization header

You'll need an with a valid Bearer token. This token is your access token you retrieved according to .

• Replace access_token with your API access token:

Retrieve your Users

In the beginning, you'll be the only User in your organizational account. Let's retrieve your users by making a GET request to our /users/ endpoint.

In this example, we saved the results of the call to a new file named user_list.json.‌

With everything set properly and a good internet connection, you should receive a response status of 200 OK.

In the user_list.json file, you should see one user listed in the results: it's you! Look for the id field for your User, and copy that value. We use for ids, so it'll be formatted like this:123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000.You'll need this to .

For more details on the structure of the User list response, see .

Errors

‌Errors are a relatively common occurrence when working with APIs. It's always good to know how to prevent them and what to do when they arise.‌

See Error Codes for details on types of errors and how to resolve them.

You'll need to know how to create an application before you can follow the instructions in this section.

Request

The results you got from the Softcheck quickscreen creation call indicate that we received your request and are actively working on it. You can see this by checking the report_status field, which will likely be ANALYZING. These results will not be updated in real-time. To retrieve the updated versions, you can set up a webhook, or send requests to one of our endpoints.

Choose your endpoint

In this guide, we'll show you how to send requests to our API to retrieve the status of your application via our endpoints. When using this method, keep sending requests until the field report_status is marked as COMPLETE. Then, you can view your final report.

We'll use the /applicants endpoint, which allows you to retrieve the report as a JSON object.

Get your application ID

To tell the API which application to retrieve, you need to provide it with the right application ID. You'll find it in the response of the creation call, under id. We use , so it'll be formatted like this:123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000

Set up your URL

Once you have your application ID, append it to /applicants URL.

1. Choose the URL that corresponds to your industry

2. In the URL, replace {application_id} with your application's ID

Send the request

Now we're ready to bring it all together. Our /applicants endpoint accepts GET requests, so make sure that is what you use.

Here is what your full script may look like when using Python:

In the previous example, we saved the results of the call to a new file named results_softcheck_demo.json.‌

With everything set properly and a good internet connection, you should receive a response status of 200 OK.

Errors

Please see for more details on types of errors, and how to resolve them.

You'll need to know to follow the instructions in this page.

Get the URL

‌You can find the URLs for all our endpoints in the section of this documentation. Knowing how to use them can be helpful, so we'll show you how they're created.‌

In this example, you'll be making calls to our demo environment, https://demo-api.certn.co.‌

We currently divide our endpoints for application management by permissible purpose:‌