Note: Due to a technical issue, this change was made to the Web API before the announcement was made. We wish to apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

Overview

As part of work to remove limitations to the number of items allowed in operations on the Extended API (https://extended.api.uk.alloyapp.io/), the logic that's applied to inspection creation/updating/deletion will be moved to the Web API (https://api.uk.alloyapp.io/). This work is part of ongoing changes being made to functionality that has historically been available through the Extended API. This work is similar to the changes made to the defect logic in August (Defect Logic Announcement).

Who will be affected?

This change will affect any users who work with inspections in Alloy, as these changes will be introduced on the API used by both the web client and mobile apps.

Details

There have always been two routes to work with inspections:

1. through the Web API, where inspections are treated like any other item
2. through the Extended API, where certain inspection-specific logic is applied when carrying out the same operations. For example, limiting the number of asset parents an inspection can have, and applying relevant date values such as Raised Time.

However, the way in which this additional logic was applied in the Extended API required a limit on the number of items being operated on, to guard against service degradation. Therefore, we're moving this logic to the Web API, in order to remove these limits in the future.

As a result, there will be a few changes to the behaviour of the Web API Item endpoints when an inspection item is operated on in the following ways.

Application of Special Parent Logic

When creating or editing an inspection, geometry from the inspection's parent asset will typically be copied to the inspection if no geometry is supplied.

However, this will not happen if the parent asset is through a path more than two hops away (such as an inspection raised against a defect that is already linked to the asset). In these cases, the geometry from a parent non-asset item will be copied.

Required Geometry from Parent Items will not be copied

If Geometry is required on the inspection design, then specific geometry must be supplied to the API during any operation.

Previously, the Extended API would automatically copy geometry from the parent item for the inspection. This will not happen when using the Web API.

For activities where you would like the geometry to be automatically set to that of the parent (asset or activity), we recommend that Geometry is left optional (as per the Tasks interface).

Removing Inspection Geometry will force a re-fetch from the Special Parent

When editing an inspection, removing its geometry will cause the Web API to re-fetch the parent item's geometry and set the inspection's geometry to that. This means it's effectively impossible to set an inspection's geometry to null if it has parents with geometry.

Extended Logic will appear as another entry in Item Audit Logs

Previously, extended logic applied to inspection items would be included in a single edit record in the item audit. Following this change, extended logic operations will be added as a separate audit record to the main operation that triggered the change.

Changed Error Codes

Since this is effectively new logic being introduced, any errors encountered will generate different Alloy error numbers than the same error before the changes. This may affect error handling in any existing integrations.

Inspections can only have One Asset Parent Enforced

Previously, inspections created through the Extended API were only permitted to have one asset parent. Contravening this constraint would result in a server error (500) being thrown.

This has now been changed to return a bad user request (400) with detail being ItemParentsContraintViolated instead of InternalError.

Also, it was previously possible to create inspections with multiple asset parents by creating them through the Web API. This is now no longer possible, as the same constraint will now apply to the Web API Items endpoints.

No Automatic Raised Time

If no time is supplied for attributes_tasksRaisedTime when creating a job, the Extended API will automatically set it to the current date/time.

This functionality is planned for the Web API but isn’t available yet.

No Automatic Team Assignment 

If no team is supplied when creating a job, the Extended API will copy the default team from the parent asset (if set).

This functionality is planned for the Web API but isn’t available yet.

Expected Release Date

1st September 2022

Context

As you may be aware, we have been facing an issue with importing geometry data through the Gateway using the Alloy Web Client. Currently, when a coordinate system is selected, all rows with geometry in an import will return a warning and will not be imported correctly. This has been due to a change to a third-party service which supplies projection settings used by the Alloy Web Client.

This is an ongoing issue and has not yet been resolved, however, in an effort to allow a workaround for this issue, we have altered the coordinate system selection to display the conversion (proj4) string.

Workaround

To select your data file's coordinate system, click the magnifying glass icon to bring up the picker and select from the list.

This populates the Coordinate system text box with the configuration string for your selected coordinate system. This string is currently being formed incorrectly and removing the text +type=crs at the end of the string, will resolve this import issue.

We understand that this solution is not ideal, and are working on a long-term fix, but in the meantime, we have introduced this change to allow you to continue importing your data.

Overview

As part of work to remove limitations to the number of items allowed in operations on the Extended API (https://extended.api.uk.alloyapp.io/), logic applied to defect creation, updating and deletion will now be added to the Web API (https://api.uk.alloyapp.io/). This is the first of many changes we will be making to functionality currently available via the Extended API over the coming months.

Who will be affected?

This change will affect any users who work with defects in Alloy as these changes will be introduced on the API used by both the web client and mobile apps.

Details

There have always been two routes to work with defects, either through the Web API, where defects are treated the same as any other item or through the recommended Extended API where certain logic, specific to defects, is applied when carrying out the same operations. The way in which this additional logic was applied in the Extended API  meant that limits to the number of items operated on needed to be put in place to guard against service degradation. Moving this logic down to the Web API is required to remove these limits in the future.

These changes will result in a few changes in behaviour of the Web API Item endpoints when a defect item is operated on in the below ways:

Application of Special Parent Logic

When creating or editing a defect, geometry from the defect's parent asset will be copied to the defect if no geometry is supplied in most situations. This will not be the case if the parent asset is through a path that is more than two hops away (such as a defect raised against an inspection that is already linked to the asset), in these cases, the geometry from a parent non-asset item will be copied.

Required Geometry from Parent Items will not be copied

If Geometry is required on the defect design, then specific geometry must be supplied to the API during any operation. Previously, the Extended API would automatically copy geometry from the parent item for the defect, this will not happen when using the Web API. We therefore recommend that for activities where you would like the geometry to be automatically set to that of the parent (asset or activity), that the Geometry be left as optional as per the defects interface.

Removing Defect Geometry will force Re-fetch from the Special Parent

When editing a defect, removing the defect's geometry will cause the Web API to re-fetch the parent item's geometry and set the defect's geometry to that. This means it is effectively not possible to set a defect's geometry to null if it has parents with geometry set.

Extended Logic will appear as another entry in Item Audit Logs

Previously, extended logic applied to defect items would be included in a single edit record in the item audit. Following this change, extended logic operations will be added as a separate audit record to the main operation that triggered the change.

Changed Error Codes

Since this is effectively new logic being introduced, any errors encountered will generate different Alloy error numbers than the same error before the changes. This may affect any error handling in any existing integrations.

Defects can only have One Asset Parent Enforced

Previously, defects created through the Extended API were only permitted to have one asset parent. Contravening this constraint would result in a server error (500) being thrown. This has now been changed to return a bad user request (400) with detail being ItemParentsContraintViolated instead of InternalError.

Also, previously it was possible to create defects with multiple asset parents by creating them through the Web API, this is now no longer possible as the constraint will now apply to the Web API Items endpoints.

Defect Raised Time

The most visible change will be when creating defects through the Web API, if no time is supplied for attributes_defectsRaisedTime this will be automatically populated to the current date/time.

Expected Release Date

25th August 2022

Overview

An option to export data as either a CSV or ESRI SHP file was introduced to the API in v2.32. This choice was added to the request model for the Data Export endpoint via a discriminator. When this was initially introduced, the discriminator was optional and if not supplied, would default to CSV. Since v2.35 the discriminator is now required when making calls to this endpoint.

Who does this affect?

This change affects API users of the Export endpoint. Web users are not affected.

Details

The following endpoint:

POST /api/export

now requires a value passed for discriminator which can currently take one of two options:

• ShapefileExportWebRequestModel requests made with this model will return files as SHP.
• CsvExportWebRequestModel requests made with this model will return data as a CSV. 

Not providing a value will now result in an error being returned.

Expected Release Date

This change was included as part of the v2.35 release of Alloy on 5th May 2022. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

Overview

As part of ongoing improvements to the Extended API, we are changing the way we consider required attributes on creation of activities through the API. This change is being made to ensure consistency with other endpoints as to how what 'Required' means when considering attribute values being supplied to the API by the caller.

Who will be affected?

Any users of the Extended API who rely on the geometry of created activities being inferred from the parent Asset will be affected by this change.

Details

Currently, it is possible to create an activity such as a Job or Defect via the Extended API and not provide geometry despite the activity Design having the geometry marked as required since the geometry may be inferred from the parent Asset. This has created an inconsistency where required attributes are not actually required.  

In order to remedy this inconsistency, we are making a change to ensure that values for all required attributes are always supplied by the caller of the API. For simplicity, the end result will be:

Required means required 😀

For activities where geometry and possibly other attribute values are not supplied but computed by a service/backend process, these attributes should be marked as optional. This ensures data consistency in the event that the backend process is unable to compute an attribute value for any reason.

Avoiding a Breaking Change

As part of this change, we will be updating all activity designs, including custom designs where possible to mark the geometry as optional to ensure that any integrations that rely on the previous interpretation are not affected by this change in behaviour.

Expected Release Date

This change will be rolled out over multiple releases starting from the end of May 2022.

Overview

Following an internal review of the performance of the API, we are updating the API rate limits to separate limits per endpoint. 

Previously, a single API rate limit was defined as "sustained calls of over 100 requests per minute on any endpoint" and was controlled via direct disabling of the API key responsible. Following our recent announcement regarding API Rate Limit Responses, we will no longer disable API keys in this way. 

Who will be affected by this change?

This change will affect any users directly using the API. We've taken the precaution of monitoring usage across all customers over the last few months to understand if any will be affected by these changes. The handful of customers that are exceeding some of these limits have been approached directly so that they can resolve any issues before we roll out the changed limits. 

Details

We are moving from a single limit across all endpoints to separate limits by endpoint to better reflect the load placed on the system by each call. These limits have been set based on extensive performance tests and are designed to minimise the impact on API users. These changes will further improve the robustness of the system for all users. The limits are outlined in the table below and are with respect to a time period of 1 minute (60000ms):

POST

api/aqs/query

120

POST

api/aqs/join

120

POST

api/aqs/statistics

120

POST

api/bulk/generic

20

PUT 
POST 
DELETE

api/design

50

PUT
POST
DELETE

api/designInterface

50

*

api/file (See Note 1 below)

100

GET

api/item

300

GET

api/item-version

300

PUT
POST
DELETE

api/item

150

GET

api/item/*/graph

100

GET

api/item/*/parents

300

POST

api/item-log/item/*/reconstruct

100

GET

api/item-log/item/*

200

GET

api/item-log/design/*

200

GET

api/layer/*/*/*/*/network

2000

GET

api/layer/*/*/*/*/cluster

5000

GET

api/layer/*/*/*/*/basic

2000

*

api/route/*

50

GET

api/oauth-reply

100

POST

api/oauth-token-login

100

POST

api/sync

120

PUT
POST
DELETE

api/workflow

50

PUT
POST
DELETE

api/workflow/*/action

50

PUT
POST
DELETE

api/workflow-action-group

50

PUT
POST
DELETE

api/workflow-action-group/*/action

50

POST

api/(workflow|workflow-action-group)/*/action/parameters

10

*

api/(budget|change-component|defect|inspection|job|project|team|work-unit)

100

POST

api/extended/bulk

20

All other endpoints not specified above

1000

Overview

Following our previous announcement on the temporary change to the way AQS Join Query results are displayed in custom reports, we have now added an option to allow you to specify the aggregation behaviour via a setting on the table header in the report. Two options are available: TakeOne, which takes a single item from the possible results to display as an example or Count which will result the count of the linked results.

Who will this affect?

This change will affect anyone using the AQS Query Data source with join attributes within the Report Builder to build custom reports.

Details

We have now added support to set an aggregation type per data source header in custom reports.

This aggregation type can either be TakeOne or Count.

TakeOne will take the item attribute value of whatever first item the join attribute comes back with.

Count will set the total count of items returned by the join attribute and display it as "X Items".

This property is optional, if all the attributes along the join path have the max number of links set to one (max: 1) in their options, it will default to TakeOne, otherwise it defaults to Count. This is in order to replicate behaviour provided through Data Explorer. As these header properties can only be set once the attribute type is defined, it can only be defined on data source editing.  

Data Source Editing

PUT /api/custom-report/{customReportCode}/data-source/{code}

Prior to this change, editing an AQS Query data source would have been made using following the "EditDataSourceAqsQueryWebRequestModel" model.

This model has now been updated allowing you to specify an additional property called "headerSettings" which allows you to configure the headers further, as follows:

{
  "discriminator": "EditDataSourceAqsQueryWebRequestModel",
  "name": "All dogs",
  "required": false,
  "signature": "618146945b5b25015cf8d186",
  "dodiCode": "designs_dog_5f181f89f4f5bf0066f80812",
  "attributes": [],
  "joinAttributes": [],
  "headerSettings": [
    {
      "headerId": "myTakeOneHeaderId",
      "aggregationType": "TakeOne"
    },
    {
      "headerId": "myCountHeaderId",
      "aggregationType": "Count"
    }
  ]
}

The response model can still be in "EditDataSourceWebResponseModel", the change here being that the "headers" property found inside the "customReport" and "dataSources" properties, when the data source is of model "CustomReportAqsQueryDataSourceWebModel", will optionally contain an "aggregationType" property, highlighting the behaviour above.

Note that as part of this change, the default behaviour has been reverted to the Count behaviour mentioned above (which used to be default until v2.29.0 when it was temporarily change to TakeOne to avoid report failures as described here).

Example

Let's assume there is a project containing 4 job tasks. If the user would create a custom report using an AQS Query data source rooted on Projects and linking to Jobs via the Tasks Attribute (Project DS -> Tasks to Jobs DS -> Title). If a Table control was then added to the layout based on this data source, the display of the data in this table will change following this change. 

Take One

Using the TakeOne option, a single exemplar item is displayed e.g. JOB-9. Note that this is not necessarily the first item in the list and is dependant on the order returned by the system.

Count

Using the Count option, the number of linked items is displayed, for example:

Expected Release Date

13th January 2022

Overview

We are adding an new option to the data Export endpoint which allow you to specify the projection to be used for Geometry data by providing the Proj4 string to use to convert over from WGS84 (Lat-Long)

Who does this affect?

This change will affect API users of the Export endpoint but will not modify the existing behaviour if the optional setting is not provided. 

Details

The following endpoint:

POST /api/export 

now accepts an optional string proj4 that may be used to convert geometry coordinates into the spatial reference system of your choice. This mirrors the optional Proj4 setting used during import.

Without the proj4 string, geometry is exported in WGS84 (Longitude, Latitude) coordinates.

There is a database of PROJ4 strings available for searching here https://epsg.io/

For example, for the UK British National Grid system, the Proj4 string is

+proj=tmerc +lat_0=49 +lon_0=-2 +k=0.9996012717 +x_0=400000 +y_0=-100000 +ellps=airy +datum=OSGB36 +units=m +no_defs

Expected Release Date

13th January 2022

Overview

We are adding a new option to the Data Export endpoint which allow you to set the export format to ESRI SHP (Shape) file instead of the standard CSV export. 

Who does this affect?

This change will affect API users of the Export endpoint who require ESRI shape file output. 

Details

The following endpoint:

POST /api/export 

can now be used to specify the export type as ESRI SHP. Note that due to length constraints in the SHP format for field data, attributes values may be truncated in the exported files.

The endpoint now accepts two different request models:

ShapefileExportWebRequestModel requests made with this model will return files as SHP.

CsvExportWebRequestModel requests made with this model will return data as a CSV.

Both these models extend the ExportWebRequestModelBase model.

Note the the SHP format consists of multiple (3) files that will be returned on the Export File endpoint as a zipped bundle. 

GET /api/export/{id}/file

Expected Release Date

13th January 2022

Overview

As part of ongoing improvements, we are updating the way API keys are managed in the system. This change will see the provision of an API key to every user discontinued, with future keys being generated on demand using the new mechanism described below. As part of this change, the way in which the keys are provided to the API as a token header will change to use the Bearer Authentication method.  

Who will this affect?

This change will affect all API users as any existing API key in use will be retired based on the timeline specified below, with the expectation for all users to transition to the new keys by that time.

Details

A new mechanism for API keys has been added and alongside it, a new series of endpoints. The current API key mechanism, where all users have an API key created alongside them is obsoleted and will be removed as part of Phase 2. 

Ignoring the current mechanism, new users will not have API keys created by default, but instead, will be able to create them on demand up to a maximum of 100 keys per user per customer. The new API keys will also come with a label field (to provide some description), an enabled flag (if false the API key will not be valid for usage), and an optional expireAt datetime (if an API key is expired it cannot be edited nor used to authenticate, it can only be deleted).

An API key value (or token) will never be shown after the creation of the API key, so if an issued API is lost or forgotten then the user will need to generate a new one. The database only contains a one way hashed version of the key, just like for passwords, so it is not possible for anyone to impersonate the user using the key even if they have direct access to database. 

The new endpoints are as follows:

GET api/api-key/{id} - Allows the caller to get the information of an API key by its ID

GET api/api-key - Allows the caller to list API keys by user and customer. Optionally it accepts a filter for the "label" field

PUT api/api-key/{id} - Allows the caller to edit an API key to change the label, enabled flag and expiration

POST api/api-key - Allows the caller to create an API key, this is the only endpoint that will return the actual value of an API key

DELETE api/api-key/{id} - Allows the caller to delete an API key

Important: The way you pass the API key is changing!

The new API keys will need to be passed according to the OAuth 2.0 Bearer token format (RFC 6750). That is a request header named "Authorization" will need to be included, which would look like this:

Authorization: Bearer APIKEYVALUEHERE

This change means that the API keys provided by the old and new mechanisms are not interchangeable and old keys will not be accepted via the Authorization header and new keys will need to be generated.  

FAQ

Will API keys work across Alloy regions/environments?

No, each key is specific to a user and customer project. Customers with Live and Staging environments should consider these separately as there is no link between projects across environments. 

Is there a default expiration date for each API key?

No, by default each API key will have no expiration date set and it will be the responsibility of the user to set this on creation or edit.

Will I be able to retrieve my API key at a later date following creation?

In line with best practice, the API key will only be given in the response model on creation. It will then be the creator's responsibility to safely store this key for later use. Only the associated data for the API keys (such as the label, enabled flag and expiration date) will be provided in the GET, PUT and DELETE responses.

Will I need an API key to generate an API key?

Once you've authenticated using your login credentials via the session endpoint and created a customer session, you'll be able to use the customer session token to generate and manage keys using the endpoints described above. So no, you won't be stuck in a infinite loop trying to get an API key 😜. 

Expected Release Date

13th January 2022

Phase 2: Retirement of Existing Token Method

26th January 2023