Getting started with the Integration API

The Flex Integration API is an application programming interface that provides full access to the marketplace's data. It can be used to build applications that integrate different own or 3rd party systems with the Flex marketplace. For an overview of the different APIs that Flex provides, read this article.

In this tutorial, you will download, set up and run an example Integration API command line script that will report some data about your Flex marketplace.

Install development tooling

To get the example script up and running, you will need to download and install some basic development tooling:

• Git
• Node.js
• Yarn

Clone the examples Git repository

Clone the examples repository:

git clone https://github.com/sharetribe/flex-integration-api-examples.git

Go to the cloned directory:

cd flex-integration-api-examples

Install the dependencies

Install all dependencies:

yarn install

Create Integration API application in Flex Console

The example scripts use the Flex Integration SDK for JavaScript. In order for the SDK to be able to authenticate to the Integration API, it requires two values: a client ID and a client secret. You can obtain both by creating a new Integration API application in Flex Console.

Log in to your marketplace in Flex Console and navigate to Build > Applications.

Click the Add new link, fill in an application name (for instance "My example integration") and choose Integration API as the API.

Once the application is created, you will see a screen listing your application's client ID and client secret. Keep that screen open, as you will need these values in the next step.

Configuration

Copy the environment configuration template file:

cp env-template .env

Open the .env file in your favorite text editor and fill in the FLEX_INTEGRATION_CLIENT_ID and FLEX_INTEGRATION_CLIENT_SECRET variables with the values you obtained in the previous step.

Run an example report

You can get a summary report for your marketplace listings, users and transactions running the following example:

node scripts/analytics.js

You should see output similar to this:

================ My Marketplace analytics ================

Listings: 80
 - 4 draft(s)
 - 5 pending approval
 - 70 published
 - 1 closed

Users: 150
Transactions: 25

This month, starting from Sun Dec 01 2019:
 - 3 new user(s)
 - 10 new listing(s)
 - 9 new transaction(s)

Next steps

• Study the examples source code to get a better understanding on how to use the Integration SDK
• Read the Integration API reference documentation
• Start building your own integration. You can do so in different ways, depending on your needs:
  • Build your integration as a backend feature on top of your existing Sharetribe Web Template app
  • Fork our Integration API examples repository and build on top of that
  • Create a completely new application. If you use JavaScript as your programming language, you can make use of our Integration SDK. Otherwise, you will need to implement similar functionality as the SDK already provides in your own language of choice.