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Tom Isluv avatar image
Tom Isluv asked Tom Isluv answered

New to RingCentral APIs, need help understanding structure and security

We are new to RingCentral API and are trying to understand the high level structure of the system. We are confused with the requirement to build an App in the Developer Portal. What does this App do? Many other API implementations that we have done never required a "middleware" App to communicate with the API. We just make a call to the API endpoint and present credentials, usually API ID and API Key.


Secondly, how do we authenticate to the API? There are no credentials available anywhere in our RC account that are required in the App?

The documentation that we have found on authentication is very unclear. RC does provide the code for creating the SMS App, but documentation for the App is terrible. Also, we intend to use Azure Logic Apps to communicate with the API but are unable to find any documentation on how to communicate with the API from a platform such as Azure Logic Apps or Postman for example.

Finally, in our case we need to integrate an existing CRM SaaS application with RingCentral SMS API. We have not been able to find documentation on how to implement RC API in that environment. Mainly how do we get RC credentials for all users of the CRM system so that they don't have to log in every day or every time that they send an SMS message?


Any help with clarifying this would be very much appreciated.


Thanks

Tom

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Cote_Business Systems avatar image
Cote_Business Systems answered

First off, the creation of an "App" in the RC developers portal is not really an app, you don't build any type of app within RC, rather its just a name reference for your own app that you will build in whatever environment you want (AzureLogic, LAMP, MEAN, etc). This RC APP (ie. named reference) will just create 2 sets of of API IDs and Keys: one set in a sandbox so that you can perform testing of your app AND to prove to RC that your app can perform an appropriate number of API calls successfully while generating a limited number of API call errors. Once you have proven this with your app, then you can promote your RC App from sandbox to production and are then allowed to use the production id key set from within your app.

Hope this clarifies this a bit - it took us a while to figure it out as well, the documentation is missing a lot of details and makes a lot of assumptions.

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Tom Isluv avatar image
Tom Isluv answered

Thank you! That makes so much sense. Why can't they simply explain that in the documentation?

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Developer sandbox tools

Using the RingCentral Phone for Desktop, you can dial or receive test calls, send and receive test SMS or Fax messages in your sandbox environment.

Download RingCentral Phone for Desktop:

Tip: switch to the "sandbox mode" before logging in the app:

  • On MacOS: press "fn + command + f2" keys
  • On Windows: press "Ctrl + F2" keys