Virtuous API Authentication

Virtuous CRM has an open API available for your organization to work with. An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of defined rules that allows different software applications to communicate with each other. The Virtuous API acts as an intermediary, allowing your organization to access specific functionalities or data from VCRM to interface with external systems and processes. The VCRM API is commonly used when building integrations between systems, automating workflows, or enabling third-party developers to extend the native functionality of the VCRM application. By providing streamlined and standardized access to complex systems, using the Virtuous CRM API can save time, reduce errors, and foster innovation. This article provides guidance on the authentication process. 

To review the detailed API documentation, check out this document. 

Authentication Types

There are 2 authentication methods for the API:

1. OAuth Token authentication (Recommended)
2. HMAC Authentication (Not recommended as its very limited in how it can interact with the API).

The easiest way to authenticate is using OAuth Token authentication. Upon requesting a token you will get back a json response with a access_token that will be used going forward along with a refresh token to fetch a new token when the original expires in 2 weeks.

Create a Token

The email address and password need to be url encoded prior to the string construction to allow any special characters that may be present in your password.

Here is a quick example that shows how to request a token using curl:

curl -d "grant_type=password&username=YOUR_EMAIL&password=YOUR_PASSWORD" -X POST https://api.virtuoussoftware.com/Token

Any future requests to the API will need to include the following header:

Refresh Tokens

When fetching a token, a refresh token will also be returned. This should be stored and used to fetch new tokens whenever your token expires.

To request a new Token use the refresh_token from your original Token response as follows:

curl -d "grant_type=refresh_token&refresh_token=REFRESH_TOKEN" -X POST https://api.virtuoussoftware.com/Token