Platform and Pro API Release

A centralized place for your tools plus a new location for your access to high powered investigative solutions

Apr 12, 2023

TLDR:

Recently, we mentioned that we would be rolling out improvements to user management that grants users unlimited API permissions in a more accessible format. Those improvements are now available: our new platform functionality allows users to login and manage their API keys in one place, as well as the ability to grant authorized access to a Pro API endpoint that builds on the capabilities of our Public API.

Introduction

Back in February, Open Measures introduced rate-limit changes to our API to counter some abusive request activity. Through all this, we remain heavily focused on providing access to and partnering with legitimate users—particularly academics, independent researchers, and journalists—to get them the data they need. To better support that purpose going forward, we have built a platform that allows our users to manage their access all in one place.

Functionality

When a user logs into the platform, they will see a list of their available tools. This update is in stark contrast to the old system of users needing to track and bookmark our hosted URLs, platforms, and interfaces. This is also projected to better facilitate moving quickly between UIs which promotes the speed researchers need to do their job. Going forward, this will also be a one-stop location and source of truth for future releases.

We’re also adding new API key functionality, which allows us to know our users beyond a simple IP addresses and apply their permissions accordingly. Users will be able to access their API JWT keys from the Account Settings page. From this page, users may view and copy their active API JWT keys and reissue or rotate their keys.

Last, we’re adding a new endpoints feature to allow legitimate users to use their API keys to access a Pro API. The Pro API has no rate limits on requests and surfaces real time insights by constantly scraping the sites we crawl.

import
jwt_token = <YOUR TOKEN HERE>
pro_api_host_url = <PRO API_URL HERE>

r = requests.get(
    f"{pro_api_host_url}/content",
    params={
        "site": "win",
        "term": "Trump arrest",
        "since": "2022-01-01",
        "until": "2023-03-18",
    },
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {jwt_token}",
    },
)

data = r.json()

For more on how to use our new Pro API endpoints, read here:

Conclusion

For the last few months, we’ve been focused on implementing a safer solution to API access — one that allows us to understand our trusted user base while also facilitating access beyond whitelisting IP addresses. Our new platform and Pro API solution does that and more by providing our users a single page to manage their API keys and all their tooling access.

If you’d like to learn more about these changes or would like to discuss your level of access, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team.