Default distributions associated with each vendor via SKY API

Ryan Zimmerlee
Ryan Zimmerlee
Fourth Anniversary
in SKY Developer General Discussions
Hello,


I am trying to retrieve the default distributions associated with each vendor retrieved from the 'Vendor (List)' API call.


1. Is it possible to request this array/object be returned with the default response from the GET 'Vendor (List)' endpoint?

2. If the answer to #1 is no, what is the suggestion for handling a single API call for each vendor? In this specific client instance, there are 3,000+ vendors that would need this data resulting in 3,000 API calls. We're limited to 10 calls/second and 25,000 calls/day... we will quickly hit our limit even with our own homegrown rate throttling, as you can see, especially if we're making this call for multiple new clients a day. Granted, this would only ever be an issue on the initial vendor upload to our system as we're making consecutive calls using the vendor's last modified date. Is there a way to send a bulk API request that consumes 1 call for X amount of vendors instead of sending them 1-by-1?

3. Regardless of #2 and #3, the 'Vendor default distributions (List)' endpoint only returns the 'ui_project_id' and 'account_number', and not the related descriptions as seen on the Financial Edge NXT vendor detail page for each vendor. Is there a reason for this? Can I request that these be included in the response as well or can someone point me to an endpoint that returns this data?


Unrelated question:

4. Is 'ui_defined_id' a client specific override of the 'vendor_id'? This value is shown on each vendor detail page but is not the value that is used in the SKY APIs. (see images below)

Comments

  • Ben Wong
    Ben Wong Blackbaud Employee
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant
    Hi Ryan Zimmerlee‍,


    I don't have all the answers for you but wanted to provide some clarity on the throttling. The 25,000 calls per day is sufficient for the vast majority of single org use-cases. Once you are trying to scale your app to handle multiple orgs, a much more scalable option is becoming a Blackbaud Partner and using the Partner tier API subscription that enables 100,000 API calls per day, per app connection. A connection is a link between your app and an org's environment, so essentially, the 100,000 limit is on a per app, per org basis. I know that your company is already a Blackbaud Partner, so we can discuss over email the appropriate setup for you scenario.


    By the way, here is some more explanation on how our throttling works:
    https://developer.blackbaud.com/skyapi/docs/in-depth-topics/api-request-throttling


    Thanks!
  • Eddie Barker
    Eddie Barker
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
    Hi Ryan,

    To round out the Financial Edge NXT/SKY API-specific questions above in addition to what Ben said:

    1. There are no plans at this point to add default distributions to the GET vendor list endpoint. Our philosophy is to keep the list endpoints as lean as possible so you can use them to drill into a record in more detail. However, I would encourage you to submit this to the idea bank at https://community.blackbaud.com/products/financialedgenxt/ideas - this is the primary source we use to determine some product direction when we're in that area.

    2. I think Ben mentioned upgrading to a partner level. There is no way to send a bulk request that I know of.

    3. You can find the descriptions for account and project at GET account and GET project respectively, in the General Ledger section of the API endpoint reference. Please do submit idea bank ideas for returning descriptions.

    4. The ui_defined_id is the ID that is exposed in the vendor record, and defined by the user. the vendor_id (2385) is the immutable internal vendor_id record. Some of our users opt not to include a ui_defined_id in their configuration.


    Thanks so much!

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