Amion Programming interface

Programming interface

Amion has a programming interface that lets you pull schedule data into other applications. You post standard HTTP requests to the Amion server but with special parameters on the URL, the server returns data records instead of HTML pages.

Before utilizing the API, please check out Amion's new Timesheet Tool, a simpler way to draw data from a schedule.

The programming interface is designed for software applications to poll for data in the background. Be very careful with how often you request data from Amion. Amion is a resource shared by all of our customers. One misbehaving program can make the system slow for everyone. We block access to sites that overload Amion with an unnecessary number of data requests.

Store data you get from Amion locally. For subsequent inquiries, check the time stamp on the local data first. If it's reasonably current, use it instead of requesting fresh data from Amion. Most schedules don't change all that often. Data should be considered current for a minimum of 5 minutes. Most applications do fine with 10, 15, or even 30-minute refresh intervals. Your application will run more quickly if you're not constantly pulling data from Amion or other sites.

To get a sense of how it works, post a data-feed request through a web browser. Try going to the following address:

http://www.amion.com/cgi-bin/ocs?Lo=az1&Rpt=619

The parameter "Lo=az1" or "Login=az1" specifies the account at Amion from which to draw information. The password "az1" gets you into a sample attending-style schedule. Replace "az1" with your group's Amion login password to retrieve data from your schedules.

Save the data as a text file - for example "amion.txt" - or open it directly in Excel. With the URL above, you'll get a data record for every assignment for the current day. The data you get back should look something like this:

-------------
Assignments for 6-20-18 (as of Jun 20 16:34 2018 eastern time)

Field 1 - 3: Staff name, unique ID, backup ID
Field 4 - 6: Assignment name, unique ID, backup ID
Field 7 - 8: Date and time of assignment (GMTO=-5 1)

"Simmons, G",38,2,"Call",53,6,6-20-18,1700,2200
"Poon, E",31,4,"Backup",54,7,6-20-18,1700,2300
-------------

Add the parameters "Day=", "Month=" and/or "Year=" to specify the dates the data feed should return. The URL:

http://www.amion.com/cgi-bin/ocs?Lo=az1&Rpt=619&Month=6&Year=2018

would give you all the assignments for June 2018. Add "Day=" to specify a specific day, as in:

http://www.amion.com/cgi-bin/ocs?Lo=az1&Rpt=619&Day=5&Month=6&Year=2018

Use the construct "Staff=" and the first few letters of a name to pull data for that person in particular.

Add the word tabs after the report number to receive tab-delimited data instead of the quote-comma format shown above:

http://www.amion.com/cgi-bin/ocs?Lo=az1&Rpt=619tabs

Add a single '-' after Rpt=619tabs to suppress the headers altogether. Add two '-' signs to get a single row of field names, as in:

https://www.amion.com/cgi-bin/ocs?Lo=az1&Rpt=619tabs--

Report 619 is one commonly used report but there are many others. Learn more about customizing the date range and data you're requesting.