Shift iQ is a learning management system that specializes in the assessment of skills to align talent to career and training pathways. It features a comprehensive, competency-based approach, and it provides a credible record of demonstrated knowledge and achieved skills.
Shift iQ is the technology behind many great online platforms and programs, including:
This repository contains free and open source code for a Software Development Kit (SDK) that can be used by third-party developers to integrate Shift iQ into their own applications, libraries, and business intelligence reporting tools.
- Please note this SDK is undergoing a significant overhaul to improve its performance and security, and to provide developers with a much wider and much richer set of features. Therefore, it is subject to change. This readme will be updated whenever updates to the SDK are posted.
The SDK communicates with the Shift platform through an open REST API. It includes sample code for Microsoft .NET 8.0 and .NET Framework 4.8. Of course, you are not limited to using Microsoft .NET in your implementations. The API is accessible using any programming language that supports HTTPS requests and JSON responses; for example: cURL, Go, JavaScript, Node.js, PHP, Power Query M, PowerShell, Python, and Ruby.
Here's a summary of what's included in the source code for the SDK:
This is a .NET Standard 2.0 library that contains C# classes for all Request and Response objects supported by the API. It is not required in your application, but it does provide a useful reference for the design and implementation of your own request and response objects. Because this library is implemented using .NET Standard 2.0, you can reference it from a .NET Core application and/or a .NET Framework application.
This is a .NET 8.0 library in which developers can define the inventory of API endpoints to be used by their application. It uses Refit to dynamically generate the implementation for a REST API interface.
This is a .NET 8.0 console application that demonstrates how to use the SDK in a .NET (Core) application. To run this demo, simply update the configurating settings in AppSettings.json with the Developer API Token Secret (and the API Endpoint URL) provided by Shift iQ to your organization.
This is a .NET Framework 4.8 library in which developers can define the inventory of API endpoints to be used by their application. It uses Refit to dynamically generate the implementation for a REST API interface.
This is a .NET Framework 4.8 console application that demonstrates how to use the SDK in a .NET Framework application. To run this demo, simply update the configurating settings in App.config with the Developer API Token Secret (and the API Endpoint URL) provided by Shift iQ to your organization.
Contact us to request a Developer API Token Secret. This is a random cryptographic base-64 encoded secret key. Store it in a safe place! Your secret will look something like this:
ZtkO1K/XhUYNIJRut0XnQzNp2c2r7hUFW459GrvYP+TPpwo90IhpFnvHN0otnQ3j8LMPowaw9soVcs3jabGvAg==
We will also provide you with a Developer API Endpoint URL. This is a URL assigned to your organization for access to the API. Your endpoint will look something like this:
https://dev.shiftiq.com:12345
"12345" identifies a secure port number on the API server. Your port number will differ.
To identify yourself to the API, send a POST request to the token endpoint with your Secret in the body of your request. The API validates your secret and returns a Bearer Token. You'll use this token in all your subsequent API requests. The token will look something like this:
eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxMjM0NTY3ODkwIiwibmFtZSI6IkpvaG4gRG9lIiwiaWF0IjoxNTE2MjM5MDIyfQ.SflKxwRJSMeKKF2QT4fwpMeJf36POk6yJV_adQssw5c
The API uses open industry-standard JSON Web Tokens exclusively. Each JSON Web Token (JWT) generated by the API includes the following information:
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Developer | The unique identifier assigned to your developer account. |
| Organization | The unique identifier assigned to your organization account. |
| Roles | The roles assigned to your account. These determine the permissions granted to your API requests. |
| Identity | Your name and email address. |
| Locale | Your language preference and time zone. |
| IP | The IP address from which your token was requested. For security reasons, subsequent API requests must originate from the same IP. |
| Lifetime | The expected lifetime (in minutes) for your token, after which your token will expire. You'll need to request a new token before sending new API requests. |
| Expiry | The exact date and time when your token will expire, regardless of the its expected lifetime. |
| Signature | A digital signature generated using Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) with a SHA256 hash. This signature is verified by the server for every API request to ensure your token is valid; this also guarantees no third-party has tampered with it or intercepted it. |
Shift uses OAuth Bearer Token authorization. Your authentication token must be included in the Authorization header for all your API requests.
We recommend using Postman to experiment with the API. Here are the steps to do this if you are using Postman:
- In the request Authorization tab, select Bearer Token from the Type dropdown list.
- In the Token field, input the token provided by the API when you authenticated (as per the Authentication instructions above).
- For added security, store your token in a Postman variable and reference the variable by name.
Please note that each API endpoint has an access-control list managed by the Shift iQ DevOps team. The access-control list for a given endpoint determines the permissions associated with it. If you send a request to an endpoint and your account is not granted access to it, then you will receive an 403 Forbidden response. Contact our team if you need an update to your account permissions.