What are admin APIs?
10 min
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to:
- Explain Atlassian admin APIs
- Identify how to use admin APIs
- List some of the API calls
Extend your organization administration abilities
Cloud admin application programming interfaces, or APIs, enable the administration of organizations using API calls. Using cloud admin APIs, you can manage organizations, sites, and users. You can embed API calls in automated scripts or use them in webhooks, automating considerable manual administration tasks.
There are several types of cloud admin APIs, depending on which administration area you need to access.
- Organizations APIs
- User management APIs
- User provisioning APIs
- Data loss prevention REST APIs
- Data Control REST APIs
- API Access REST APIs
How do admin APIs work?
Calls for the cloud admin APIs usually come from an external custom script. In order to authenticate a script, an org admin needs to generate an API key from Atlassian Administration and provide it to the developer.
To generate an API key as an org admin:
- Go to admin.atlassian.com and select your organization.
- From the sidebar, expand Organization settings then select API Keys.
- Select Create API Key.
- Select the API key scope relevant to your use case then select Next.
- Enter the name of your key and the date you want the key to expire. This can't exceed one year.
- Select Next.
- Review your API Key then select Create API Key.
- Take note of the provided information as it is not stored anywhere: The organization ID and the API Key.
- Select Done.
- Use the Org ID and API key within your script to make calls to the admin cloud APIs.
The API key is different from API token. Users can generate API tokens to perform REST API calls to the apps they have access to.
Org admins can revoke an API key at any moment if they notice anything wrong with how it is being used. They can do this by selecting Revoke next to the API key in the API token activity section, under the Insights in Atlassian Administration.
What is the organizations API?
The organizations API allows you to manage an Atlassian organization, such as updating organization policies or getting the list of users, groups or domains that belong to it.
👇 Click the boxes below to learn more about uses of the organizations API.
What is the user management API?
Org admins can use the user management API to apply changes to managed accounts in an organization with verified domains.
👇 Click the boxes below to learn more about uses of the user management API.
What is the user provisioning API?
As an org admin, you can use the user provisioning API to automatically update users and groups in your organization when integrating an identity provider. To manage users and groups using the User Provisioning APIs, you will require an API key (distinct from your Cloud admin API key).
👇 Click the boxes below to learn more about the uses of the user provisioning API.
What is the data loss prevention API?
An org admin can use the data loss prevention API to:
- Identify and prevent inadvertent sharing, transfer, or unauthorized use of sensitive data.
- Monitor and safeguard sensitive data.
- Ensure a unified and secure environment for data protection within the organization.
👇 Click the boxes below to learn more about uses of the data loss prevention API.
What is the admin control API?
Org admins can use the admin control API to manage organizational entities such as authentication policies.
👇 Click the box below to learn more about uses of the admin control API.
What is the API access API?
Org admins can use the API access API to manage API access in their Atlassian organization by managing admin API keys and API tokens for managed accounts.
👇 Click the boxes below to learn more about the uses of the API access API.