FAQs
Questions frequently asked about Culture Amp's API.
What is Culture Amp’s API?
Culture Amp’s API lets customers securely retrieve their account data from the CA platform and use it in external systems. It can also be used for development via programmatically calls. It is a one-way outbound API currently and does not yet support inbound data ingestion. Note that available data from the API is limited to what is referenced on the Developer Portal but is being expanded over time.
This capability requires a developer within your organization to set up and use.
What can my organization use the API for?
Culture Amp's API can be used programmatically by customers to fulfill a large variety of powerful use cases.
Most commonly these take the form of:
- Deepening people insights and creating bespoke reporting or analytics solutions.
- Connecting Culture Amp to other apps employees use each day to support common workflows.
- Eliminating tasks that have low value or are repetitive to free up time and refocus on employee experience.
- Automating data management across apps & data stores.
- Creating new or custom workflows that incorporate data or calls from the API.
Let's take a look at each of these categories with some examples to deepen your understanding.
Deeper People Insights and Bespoke Analytics
- The API can be used to enrich your people analytics by leveraging CA data on-demand and combining it with other sources to create even more powerful insights engines.
- Centralize, combine and refine your people data with other financial, operational, sales, product or HR data to expand your picture of the employee experience.
- Get the reporting, visualizations and dashboards your leaders need to stay informed and realize business value from people data.
Example
Extracting performance ratings data for employees to run quartile analysis and more easily stratify and bucket employees by performance, enabling the identification of improvement opportunities.
Common System Types:
- ETL & Pipeline Tools
- Business Intelligence and Visualization Tools
- Analytics Platforms
- Databases, Data Warehouses and Lakes
Connecting CA to Other Apps
- Embed CA into your existing workflows across the apps your employees use each day.
- Connectivity with your tech stack seamlessly supports the way you work, with data automatically updated where its needed on-demand.
Example
Building a custom integration or connector between Culture Amp and an organization's HRIS to enable the automated retrieval of recent manager review feedback which is loaded against each employee's profile within the HRIS, allowing Managers to review this information more conveniently.
Common System Types:
- OKR, Project Tracking and Productivity Apps
- Analytics tools
- ATS and HRIS
- Coaching and Skills apps
Automating Tasks & Creating New Workflows
- Automate low-value tasks to save time and refocus on your employee experience.
- Develop your own custom workflows to support your organization's unique business needs. Customize using triggers, rules or events for bespoke, automated task or action flows and sequences.
Example
Setting up a custom workflow via Zapier or their own custom program which takes a data change from the Customer API as an input trigger to initiate a new workflow sequence. For example detecting a change in an employee’s Performance Rating triggers a sequence to retrieve this and update it in the customer’s data warehouse employee data.
Common System Types:
- Operations apps
- iPaaS and Workflow Automators
- OKR, Project Tracking and Productivity Apps
- ATS and HRIS
Programmatic Data Management
- Keep your data accurate and fresh everywhere it's needed automatically. Programmatically sync your people data and keep it updated seamlessly across your tech stack.
Example
Automated data pulls daily to retrieve their Culture Amp Employee and Performance data, subsequently loading it to their Data Warehouse before distributing this to other apps such as Greenhouse (ATS) where it is required automatically.
Common System Types:
- OKR, Project Tracking and Productivity Apps
- ATS and HRIS
- Databases, Data Warehouses and Lakes
Do I need a Developer to use the API?
Yes. Using the API is highly technical and support from a developer is needed. It may also require data engineers or analysts to support managing, analyzing and interpreting data obtain from the API.
What data is available via the API?
For the most up-to-date list of available data objects from the API, please refer to our Reference Documentation
Can I access historical data through the API?
Historic data availability varies by domain. Some domains are current-state and do not support historic data (for example, Employee Data). Others may enable up to several years of historic data to be accessed.
How often is data in the API updated?
The frequency of updates to data in the API vary by domain. Batch updates are made either within minutes or hours.
Are there additional costs involved in accessing the API?
No. Access to the API is included as part of your normal Culture Amp subscription fees and is not charged as an add-on.
How do I set up the API and use it?
To set up the API you need Administrator rights within your account.
- Go to your Admin Settings
- Navigate to ‘API’ via the left-hand side menu
- Follow the steps to generate an API credential
Once you have produced a Client ID and Client Secret, note these somewhere safe. Never share your credentials or post them publicly.
To use the API:
- Provide your credentials to a trusted developer within your organization
- The developer will need to Authenticate with the API. Details on how to do this can be found here: Authentication
- They will then need to generate an access token prior to making calls with Authorization Scopes included
The developer will then use a valid access token to make requests against the endpoints of the API which are listed in our Reference Documentation.
Is the API paginated?
Yes the API supports paginated responses for some endpoints. For more details please refer to Pagination.
Does the API use rate limits or throttles?
Yes the API is rate limited. The limits are generous and shouldn’t affect normal use of the API. For more details please refer to your Developer Portal on Usage Limits.
Is there a sandbox environment for the API?
Sandbox endpoints and credential generation methods are coming soon.
Can I share my API credentials with others?
Never share your credentials or post them publicly. This includes sharing them with Culture Amp support.
I ran into an error - where can I get help?
Check the Developer Portal which has guidance on handling errors and troubleshooting error responses. If you can’t resolve your issue or believe it is due to a technical error, please contact support to get assistance.
I have feedback or a feature request - where can I submit it?
If you have feedback on the API, want to share your experiences in using it or are looking to request a new feature, you can submit your feedback here.
Can I create objects via the API?
This functionality isn’t supported by the API at this time.
Can I import data via the API?
This functionality isn’t supported by the API at this time.
Updated about 1 year ago