Introducing Formsort’s API access to flow metadata

Access Formsort resources programmatically to do more with your flow build

We’re excited to announce the new Formsort Admin API feature. With this latest addition to our platform, you can now access your form data programmatically. This will enable you to audit variant records, analyze form questions and responses, and auto-send flows sequentially from outside the Formsort studio. You can pull and work with data in the studio directly from your application. Leverage the power of an API-accessible form-build with Formsort.

Why did we build the Admin API?

We have been closely listening to your needs and noticed that many of you are looking for a faster and more efficient way to access metadata information from our platform. While we have always delivered responder data to integrations outside of Formsort, until now, the content of the forms themselves (that is, the list of forms that exist, what has been deployed, and the specific questions within those forms) has only been available within the studio. 

The new API feature grants programmatic access to your Formsort resources, offering more tools to develop your flows, greater flexibility in how you interact with them, and error-prevention with fewer direct interactions with the studio. Some things you can now do with the API are:

1. Keep an external audit record of who published which form at what time.
   - Manage your team’s workflow with more transparency.
   - Accelerate your troubleshooting process with an easy-to reference record of variants, authors, and timestamps.
2. Contextualize responder data with flow metadata for downstream experiences
   - Show internal users the correct version of a questionnaire/answer set.
   - Render completed forms by combining the answers and variant definition data set pulled from the API to share with responders.
   - Check out this PDF generator which uses the Admin API to create PDFs of answers.
3. Build a dropdown list of available flows that can be sent to customers.
   - Retrieve your list of flows directly from your application and integrate them into your own workflow builder.
   - Programmatically send flows from a dropdown in your app.

How does the Admin API work?

In the initial release the API will provide read access to flows, variants, and deployments. Users will be able to request an API key, which they can then use to authenticate requests from any programming language to make requests. Read our documentation for more details on this. 

How did we develop the API feature?

We used API Gateway from AWS to manage API key generation, management, and authentication. This not only made it much easier to develop, but provided us with key features such as rate limiting out-of-the-box. Something we had to think about was whether to directly expose our internal APIs directly to customers, or to define a new set of streamlined endpoints. We opted to create a new set of streamlined endpoints that would be easier to use and that we could add functionality to over time.

How can you request an API key?

To request an API key, please contact our support team. Once you have your API key, you can get started with programmatic access to your Formsort resources, and start exploring the new possibilities that the Admin API offers.

More advanced features are in the works

A writeable deployment API that will allow you to easily integrate the flow development and deployment process into your existing CI/CD solutions is in the works. An example of this would be triggering an automated test suite on your site’s homepage that contains a Formsort flow, whenever the flow is deployed within Formsort — and then automatically deploying the flow once tests pass.

Do more with API access to your flows

Collaborate faster on your flows with the flexibility offered by the Formsort API access. Explore our form solutions here.