KoBo Api

KoBo JSON Rest API endpoints:

Data

• /api/v1/data - List, Retrieve submission data

Forms

• /api/v1/forms - List, Retrieve form information
• /api/v1/media - List, Retrieve media attachments
• /api/v1/metadata - List, Retrieve form metadata
• /api/v1/submissions - Submit XForms to a form

Users and Organizations

• /api/v1/user - Return authenticated user profile info

Status Codes

• 200 - Successful [GET, PATCH, PUT]
• 201 - Resource successfully created [POST]
• 204 - Resouce successfully deleted [DELETE]
• 403 - Permission denied to resource
• 404 - Resource was not found

Authentication

KoBo JSON API enpoints support both Basic authentication and API Token Authentication through the Authorization header.

Basic Authentication

Example using curl:

curl -X GET https://kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org/api/v1/ -u username:password

Token Authentication

Example using curl:

curl -X GET https://kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org/api/v1/ -H "Authorization: Token TOKEN_KEY"

KoBo Tagging API

• Filter form list by tags.
• List Tags for a specific form.
• Tag Forms.
• Delete a specific tag.
• List form data by tag.
• Tag a specific submission

Using Oauth2 with the KoBo API

You can learn more about oauth2 here.

1. Register your client application with KoBo - register

• name - name of your application
• client_type - Client Type: select confidential
• authorization_grant_type - Authorization grant type: Authorization code
• redirect_uri - Redirect urls: redirection endpoint

Keep note of the client_id and the client_secret, it is required when requesting for an access_token.

2. Authorize client application.

The authorization url is of the form:

GET /o/authorize?client_id=XXXXXX&response_type=code&state=abc

example:

http://localhost:8000/o/authorize?client_id=e8&response_type=code&state=xyz

Note: Providing the url to any user will prompt for a password and request for read and write permission for the application whose client_id is specified.

Where:

• client_id - is the client application id - ensure its urlencoded
• response_type - should be code
• state - a random state string that you client application will get when redirection happens

What happens:

1. a login page is presented, the username used to login determines the account that provides access.
2. redirection to the client application occurs, the url is of the form:

REDIRECT_URI/?state=abc&code=YYYYYYYYY

example redirect uri

http://localhost:30000/?state=xyz&code=SWWk2PN6NdCwfpqiDiPRcLmvkw2uWd

• code - is the code to use to request for access_token
• state - same state string used during authorization request

Your client application should use the code to request for an access_token.

3. Request for access token.

You need to make a POST request with grant_type, code, client_id and redirect_uri as POST payload params. You should authenticate the request with Basic Authentication using your client_id and client_secret as username:password pair.

Request:

POST/o/token

Payload:

grant_type=authorization_code&code=YYYYYYYYY&client_id=XXXXXX&
redirect_uri=http://redirect/uri/path

curl example:

curl -X POST -d "grant_type=authorization_code&
code=PSwrMilnJESZVFfFsyEmEukNv0sGZ8&
client_id=e8x4zzJJIyOikDqjPcsCJrmnU22QbpfHQo4HhRnv&
redirect_uri=http://localhost:30000" "http://localhost:8000/o/token/"
--user "e8:xo7i4LNpMj"

Response:

{
    "access_token": "Q6dJBs9Vkf7a2lVI7NKLT8F7c6DfLD",
    "token_type": "Bearer", "expires_in": 36000,
    "refresh_token": "53yF3uz79K1fif2TPtNBUFJSFhgnpE",
    "scope": "read write groups"
}

Where:

• access_token - access token - expires
• refresh_token - token to use to request a new access_token in case it has expored.

Now that you have an access_token you can make API calls.

4. Accessing the KoBo API using the access_token.

Example using curl:

curl -X GET https://kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org/api/v1
-H "Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN"