A Tour of the Cisco Spark Admin API

Last month, we announced a new set of resources to administer Cisco Spark. Thanks to the new administration REST API , you can now not only add Users to an Organization, but also modify Users’ Roles or check Licenses.

One obvious point is that you need to be a Spark Administrator to use the new API. Simply reach to your Organization Administrator to be added to the “empowered” Spark users list.

Currently evaluating Cisco Spark? It is worth mentioning that you can ask for an official evaluation via Cisco Spark Plus (note that the online buying experience is limited to United States for now). The Spark Account email provided in the form below will get instantly promoted as an “Administrator” of the Organization that just got created.

Now, let’s experience your new Administration API super-powers.

Log out and sign in again at Spark for Developers portal. As you reconnected, a new Developer Access Token got issued, with Cisco Spark APIs administrator privileges.

Access the Organization interactive documentation, and list your organizations details.

What’s next ? You’ll certainly want to start writing scripts to audit your Cisco Spark Organization or automatically provision / de-provision users.

Well, when it turns to custom code writing, nothing beats the Code Generation feature of Postman.. except a full-feature Cisco Spark API client, but at the time of this article, none of the existing community client SDKs support the new Administration API … yet.

Good news! the DevNet Sparkers just updated the Cisco Spark Postman Collections project on github: check the Administration Collection. Fully scripted, the collection lets you invoke the new  Administration resources incrementally, generate code in a language of your choice, and browse the dynamically generated documentation.

You’re now a click away to importing the admin collection into Postman, and starting to code your new awesome CiscoSpark administration scripts. Happy hacking!