Introduction & Prerequisites
Purpose: This guide provides a step-by-step process for OEM Vendors to retrieve compliance-related data via APIs, ensuring each of your customers has a unique API Key.
Prerequisites:
OEM Vendor must have an active OEM Vendor Account in the Common Controls Hub
OEM Vendor must have customer CCH accounts created in the Partner Portal
OEM Vendor must have assigned and paid for a subscription plan and add-on to each customer account in the Partner Portal
OEM Vendor must have assigned a corresponding Authority Document List that matches the subscription on each customer account
API Access
API Key: OEM Vendors will make API calls on behalf of their customers to consume governance data supplied by Unified Compliance. Each customer added by an OEM Vendor will be assigned their own unique API Key and that API Key must be used for authorization when making API calls on behalf of that customer. You can retrieve the API Key for a customer on the Customers page of the Partner Portal.
NOTE: OEM Vendors can make API calls themselves using their own/unique API Key. Login to the Common Controls Hub and navigate to Settings and then API Manager where you can create your own API Key.
When making API calls on behalf of your customer(s), set the unique API Key for each customer in an Authorization bearer token, ie: Authorization: Bearer {{API Key}}
Full API Documentation
For a complete list of available APIs, the production URL endpoints, and example API responses, refer to the Postman Documentation here: https://uc4apidocs.unifiedcompliance.com
Use Cases
The following are some typical use cases for acquiring content via the APIs.
Use Case #1: Retrieve Account information
To retrieve account information, call the following API:
GET /my-account → The API Key passed in the header will be used to retrieve the account it belongs to.
Use Case #2: Retrieve an Authority Document and all associated Citations
Call the following 4 APIs to retrieve an authority document and its associated citations
GET /authority-document?page=1&perPage=100&search=NIST → Start by searching for the authority document you are looking for. Alternatively, if you already know the unique elementID of the authority document, then skip to step #2. This endpoint will return all of the authority documents that contain the text “NIST”. The response will be a paginated list, so utilize the “perPage” and “page” parameters to retrieve more pages of data. Once you have located the desired document, note down the elementID and proceed to step #2.
GET /authority-document/:id → Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementID of the document retrieved in step #1. Use this API call to retrieve all of the metadata for the authority document.
GET /authority-document/:id/citation?page=1&perPage=100&search → Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementID of the document retrieved in step #1. Use this API call to retrieve a paginated list of citations for that authority document. Utilize the “perPage” and “page” parameters to retrieve more pages of data, and, utilize the search parameter to find specific citations that contain the search value in their “guidance” and/or “reference” properties. Note down the elementID value(s) for specific citations to retrieve.
GET /authority-document/:id/citation/:citationId → Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementID of the authority document retrieved in step #1 and replace “:citationId” with the actual elementID of the citation retrieved in step #3. Use this API call to retrieve a specific citation of an authority document.
Use Case #3: Retrieve an Authority Document and all associated Mandates
Call the following 4 APIs to retrieve an authority document and its associated mandates.
GET /authority-document?page=1&perPage=100&search=NIST → Start by searching for the authority document you are looking for. Alternatively, if you already know the unique elementID of the authority document, then skip to step #2. This endpoint will return all of the authority documents that contain the text “NIST”. The response will be a paginated list, so utilize the “perPage” and “page” parameters to retrieve more pages of data. Once you have located the desired document, note down the elementID and proceed to step #2.
GET /authority-document/:id → Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementID of the document retrieved in step #1. Use this API call to retrieve all of the metadata for the authority document.
GET /authority-document/:id/mandate?page=1&perPage=100&search → Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementID of the document retrieved in step #1. Use this API call to retrieve a paginated list of mandates for that authority document. Utilize the “perPage” and “page” parameters to retrieve more pages of data, and, utilize the search parameter to find specific mandates that contain the search value. Note down the elementID value(s) for specific mandates to retrieve.
GET /authority-document/:id/mandate/:mandateId → Use this API call to retrieve specific mandates of an authority document. Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementId of the authority document retrieved in step #1 and replace “:mandateId” with the actual elementId of the mandate retrieved in step #3. Repeat the API call for each distinct mandate you intend to retrieve.
Use Case #4: Retrieve an Authority Document and all associated Common Controls
Call the following 4 APIs to retrieve an authority document and its associated common controls.
GET /authority-document?page=1&perPage=100&search=NIST → Start by searching for the authority document you are looking for. Alternatively, if you already know the unique elementID of the authority document, then skip to step #2. This endpoint will return all of the authority documents that contain the text “NIST”. The response will be a paginated list, so utilize the “perPage” and “page” parameters to retrieve more pages of data. Once you have located the desired document, note down the elementID and proceed to step #2.
GET /authority-document/:id → Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementID of the document retrieved in step #1. Use this API call to retrieve all of the metadata for the authority document.
GET /authority-document/:id/common-control?page=1&perPage=100&search → Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementID of the document retrieved in step #1. Use this API call to retrieve a paginated list of common controls for that authority document. Utilize the “perPage” and “page” parameters to retrieve more pages of data, and, utilize the search parameter to find specific common controls that contain the search value. Note down the elementId value(s) for specific common controls to retrieve.
GET /authority-document/:id/common-control/:controlId → Use this API call to retrieve specific common controls of an authority document. Replace the “:id” parameter with the actual elementID of the authority document retrieved in step #1 and replace “:controlId” with the actual elementId of the common control to retrieve. Repeat the API call for each distinct common control you intend to retrieve.
Converting from Legacy Services APIs to NextGen APIs
The legacy Services APIs all require you to set up a Shared Authority Document List and then you invoke the APIs by specifying the unique List ID or Authority Document ID. When retrieving an authority document, all of the Citations, Mandates and Common Controls would be returned in a single response. With Nextgen, an Authority Document list is not required. Instead, you can acquire all of the citations for an authority document in a single API, then all of the mandates for an authority document in another API, and finally all of the common controls for an authority document in another API.
The following is a mapping of the Legacy APIs to the NextGen APIs:
Function | Legacy Services API | NextGen API | Comment |
---|---|---|---|
Get Account Information | /my-account | /my-account | Returns information about the account. |
Search for Authority Documents | Not Available | /authority-document?page=1&perPage=100&search=<value> | Returns documents containing the search term. Optionally remove the search parameter to retrieve all documents. |
Retrieve Authority Document (metadata) | /authority-document/:document-id/details | /authority-document/:id | Legacy returns the document metadata, all citations, all mandates and all controls. NextGen only returns the document metadata. |
Search for Citations in a document | Not Available | /authority-document/:id/citation?page=1&perPage=100&search=<value> | Returns citations containing the search term. Optionally remove the search parameter to retrieve all citations for the document. |
Retrieve a specific Citation | Not Available | /authority-document/:id/citation/:citationId | NextGen can retrieve specific citations within a document |
Search for Mandates in a document | Not Available | /authority-document/:id/mandate?page=1&perPage=100&search=<value> | Returns mandates containing the search term. Optionally remove the search parameter to retrieve all mandates for the document. |
Retrieve a specific Mandate | Not Available | /authority-document/:id/mandate/:mandateId | NextGen can retrieve specific mandates within a document. |
Search for Controls in a document | Not Available | /authority-document/:id/control?page=1&perPage=100&search=<value> | Returns controls containing the search term. Optionally remove the search parameter to retrieve all controls for the document. |
Retrieve a specific Common Control | Not Available | /authority-document/:id/control/:controlId | NextGen can retrieve specific controls within a document |
Retrieve all Common Controls for a list of Authority Documents | /cch-ad-list/:list-id/tracked-controls/details | /authority-document/:id/control?page=1&perPage=100 | Legacy returns all common controls for all documents in the list. For NextGen, retrieve all of the controls for one document at a time. |