REST API
Lucernex uses RESTful API to allow users to GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE data from Lucernex. RESTful stands for REpresentational State Transfer technology. RESTful is a commonly used architectural approach to web services communication. API stands for Application Program Interface. API is code that is used to allow software programs to communicate with each other.
Typically, you will interact with Lucernex's API in one of two ways:
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You can send an XML file into Lucernex. This method is typically used for large updates.
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You can POST updates using an API interface, with a tool such as Postman.
Accruent does not provide API software. You will need to either use software provided by another client, or build your own tool.
RESTful API uses HTTP requests to manage data transactions. There are four request types. Request types are also known as methods or calls. These four methods correspond with the CRUD database update methodology.
The four request types are:
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POST — Used to create/update objects (Create)
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GET — Used to retrieve objects (Read)
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PUT — Used to update objects (Update)
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DELETE — Used to remove objects (Delete)
RESTful API is stateless, meaning that it doesn't rely upon a response from the system. For example, if you wanted to make a POST call of your RE Contract information, once the POST is completed, you can move on to your next API call. You do not need to wait for a response from the system to continue.
Lucernex has a dedicated API server that is not impacted by other system processes. This means that even when activity in Lucernex increases, API performance stays stable.
Important!
Lucernex uses XML in its API calls. We highly recommend that you use XML, as it is fully supported by our system. The RESTful Web Services Docs tool shows JSON by default, but JSON is not fully supported. Calls using JSON may result in unexpected behavior.
For more information about Lucernex environments, see the What environments exist for Lucernex? question on our Frequently Asked Questions page.
Note:
In the API section of the Online Help, {{url}} refers to your environment URL.
The following key terms may appear in our API documentation:
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Resource — Anything that can be accessed through a RESTful URL
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businessObject — Name of the primary Lx RESTful API resource that allows read access to individual objects and groups of objects and allows create, update, delete access to individual objects
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firm — Name of the Lx RESTful API resource that allows creation and update of multiple objects at one time
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Object — Any related set of fields in Lucernex that represent a single artifact or idea (for example, contract, payment transaction, straight‐line period, percentage rent record, schedule task). An object may also be referred to as a table.
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Entity — Any Lucernex object that can be accessed from the primary tabs in the user interface
The following pages are on our System Administrator Dashboard and are relevant to APIs. You can also use a free tool called Postman to develop API calls and XML syntax.
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Manage Data Fields
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Description — Browse by data groups, which reflect table relationships to some extent
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Link — {{url}}/en/pagebuilder/ReportGroupAvailableFieldEdit. jsp
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View Object Model
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RESTful WebService Docs
eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is a self‐descriptive markup language intended to store and transport data. There are many ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tools available for writing XML. Two tools our clients and subject matter experts use are Metl and Mapforce.
To learn about XML Syntax, we recommend reviewing: https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_syntax.asp
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RESTful API Basics