Connecting Raisers Edge API to Alteryx

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
If you do POSTMAN properly, you should get something like this:

Access Token is a LOT longer string, i just modified it to be short to show the rest of the stuff

The “Access Token” can be used for making SKY API calls for 60 minutes (expires_in 3600 means 3600 seconds, which is 60 minutes). “refresh_token” is what you will use to get new “Access Token” and new “refresh_token” programatically/automatically in workflow.

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
Good info.. it’s errorng out on me now due to Grant-type… and some other issue and continues to fail.. I’ll keep trying

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
Use POSTMAN on the web. I was getting error on the client on desktop too, and have no issue on the POSTMAN web.

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
Thank you for that.. I’ll let you know as soon as I try again

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
its asking me to fill in “scope" ive put in a scope but it is saying “invalid_Scope”

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
Here's the step by step (you can ignore some steps if you already have them done)

• go to your developer.blackbaud.com account and in the application you create for this work, add https://oauth.pstmn.io/v1/browser-callback and https://oauth.pstmn.io/v1/callback into the Redirect URI tile.
• go to postman > workspaces
• create a new workspace
• create a new request
• go to Authorization tab
• select OAuth 2.0 for Type
• make sure Grant Type = Authorization Code
• enter https://oauth2.sky.blackbaud.com/authorization for Auth URL
• enter https://oauth2.sky.blackbaud.com/token for Access Token URL
• enter the client_id and client_secret from the application that you added the Redirect URI of postman URL from step 1 above.
• leave everything else unchanged
• click on Get New Access Token button at the bottom
• a pop up window will prompt you to login to and authorize the application, go through logging in and authorizing and you will get a success respond that has Access Token, refresh token, etc

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
FANTASTIC! it worked!! Thank you so much

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
Stupid question now… i connect to the token and it only shows my data… any thoughts?

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
I don't know what you mean by “connect to the token” “only shows my data”

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
I am guessing my “Application” that i set up in the developer account isnt set up properly… because i want ALL data in one or ALL of the areas of Raisers Edge and it is only showing my personal data…

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
there is no “API endpoint” that gives you “all data”.

refer to the API reference documentation to find the API endpoints that give you the info you need. For example, to get list of Constituents, you can use:

https://developer.sky.blackbaud.com/docs/services/56b76470069a0509c8f1c5b3/operations/ListConstituents

list of Gifts, you can use:

https://developer.sky.blackbaud.com/docs/services/58bdd5edd7dcde06046081d6/operations/ListGifts

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
By the way, the very first call you should try to make is from my first reply, use refresh_token to get a new token.

The token you got from POSTMAN is only good for 60 minutes. So go back to the previous post now that you have a valid refresh_token, to try to refresh and get a new token/refresh_token from the token API endpoint: https://oauth2.sky.blackbaud.com/token

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
Alex,

Thanks for babysitting me through this… Blackbaud, as a new user, is not the most user friendly. so i REALLY Appreciate it!

I have added the endpoints but they dont seem to be integrated..

thoughts?

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
the refresh token seems to be expiring very fast… every time i run the workflow i have to “Refresh the token”

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
I understand you are new which is why i have been guiding you step by step.

However, it seems you are not understanding SKY API at all. the screenshot you sent of what you did to the Application page on developer.blackbaud.com is not valid.

Have you done any API related work before? Have you used Alteryx to create workflow before?

What is it that you are trying to do?

SKY API is a way for you to get, create, update, delete data from RE NXT, FE NXT, etc. You first have to have an business intent of what you are trying to achieve. then decide what API endpoint to use to do the business intent.

The 2 links I sent you is a reference docuemtnation on how to call the API and what request parameter to pass it. For example, list gift API endpoint allow you to filter the gifts that's in RE NXT and return those gifts that match your filtering. That will gives you a JSON data of the gifts that is filtered to your liking, but what are you going to do with that data? store it into a data warehouse? save it to a sharepoint / cloud document location as excel? run some statistics to be emailed to executive?

You got step 1, receive a token to make SKY API calls. step 2 is to always get a working token by refreshing.

where you go from here, depends on what you are trying to do.

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
i have worked on API's and Alteryx for years but mostly from Workday where I create my own report and then call that report..

really, all i want to do is pull all data from constituents and gifts and each separate API in the system and work with it that way… so basically a data dump of data from each area. not sure where im putting it afterward.. but to just access it is step 1

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
So start by calling constituent list API (you call it by making HTTP request as documented in the link I sent), you will get JSON data. you can play with that first.

Taylor Thornhill

@Alex Wong
Im with you now. however, when i specify grant-type = “refresh_token” i keep getting an error.. i successfully received the refresh token from Postman…

I have the following

Access Token URL

Bb-api-subscription-key

content-type

Method

Auth URL

Im calling the Access Token URL

Headers is content-type

payload is

grant-type=refreshtoken&refreshtoken=""&clientid=""&client_secret=""

Alex Wong

@Taylor Thornhill
I'm not sure if your post have “copy and paste” that is meant to have more structured info, cuz I can't make out what you trying to tell me on how you are “refreshing” your token. do you have screenshots?