Specifying the Contact ID on New Contacts

1

Hi,

Is it possible to specify the ID that is assigned to newly created Contacts
or is this automatically generated by FreeAgent?

Alternatively, is there any kind of external reference field we could use
to help us map our own Contact Codes to FreeAgent Contact IDs?

I’m asking because we wish do the following…

Just prior to creating invoices in FreeAgent, we currently check (by ID) if
any Contacts are missing from FreeAgent (this part works fine). However we
would then like to be able to offer to create any missing Contacts
automatically in FreeAgent and assign them the Contact ID specified on the
invoice.

Thanks
-Kevin Williams

2

Hi Kevin,

From your original email you say you “would then like to be able to offer
to create any missing Contacts automatically in FreeAgent and assign them
the Contact ID specified on the invoice”. If you already know a contact is
missing in FreeAgent you could create that contact using the API as
documented (FreeAgent Developer Dashboard) using the information
you have in your system. When the contact is created you will get back the
FreeAgent ID for that contact which you can save in the
freeagent_contact_id field. Would this solve your problem?

Regards,
Harry MillsOn Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Kevin Williams woollyyams@gmail.comwrote:

Nic and Dogmatic,

Yes, we have a field in our system that can be used to map in the
direction from our own contacts to external system’s such as FreeAgent and
we can make use of it.

In that case, is there a user friendly way for a user to obtain the
FreeAgent contact code so they can then type it into our system’s mapping
field?

At the moment (unless I’m missing something) it’s looking like we’ll need
to tell them something like “For each of your Contacts, open it in
FreeAgent, look at the funny number at the end of the URL and then type
that number into our mapping field. Whenever you create a new contact you
will need to go through this same process”.

We have many customers using our system (although not all of them use
FreeAgent) and there are bound to be at least some that might struggle to
understand this.

I realise that if need be I could create some kind of interface in our
system that eased the process… for instance something that downloaded all
the FreeAgent contacts, checked their names against the ones we have in our
system and auto-populates or auto suggests the IDs based on name matches.
However I don’t think my project manager would want me to spend the time
doing this if we instead had a process that 95% of users could follow to
enter them in manually.

Thanks for your responses and any other ideas welcome!

-Kevin Williams

On Friday, 21 June 2013 17:04:55 UTC+12, Kevin Williams wrote:

Hi,

Is it possible to specify the ID that is assigned to newly created
Contacts or is this automatically generated by FreeAgent?

Alternatively, is there any kind of external reference field we could use
to help us map our own Contact Codes to FreeAgent Contact IDs?

I’m asking because we wish do the following…

Just prior to creating invoices in FreeAgent, we currently check (by ID)
if any Contacts are missing from FreeAgent (this part works fine). However
we would then like to be able to offer to create any missing Contacts
automatically in FreeAgent and assign them the Contact ID specified on the
invoice.

Thanks
-Kevin Williams

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3

Hi Harry,

Thanks, you make some good points.

It’s nice to get confirmation that we’re generally headed in the right
direction.

This is a very useful and helpful community.

-KevinOn Wednesday, 26 June 2013 23:01:16 UTC+12, Harry wrote:

Hi Kevin,

I think you will need to rely on users getting the number from the URL if
you don’t want to design an interface to support importing FreeAgent
contacts in to your system. Once all the users in FreeAgent have been
matched up correctly though you can synchronise new FreeAgent contacts
automatically by detecting a FreeAgent contact with an ID you don’t already
have stored and creating a corresponding contact in your system using the
FreeAgent data. This would mean users only need to match the ID in the URL
for contacts that are already in both systems that aren’t already
synchronised.

I hope this helps.

–
Regards,
Harry Mills

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Kevin Williams <wooll...@gmail.com<javascript:> wrote:

Hi Harry,

Yes the idea you describe is a good one and in fact I think we decided
something like it could be used as part of our solution. =)

I guess the remaining minor issue for us now is how we can most easily
allow our users to enter/map (into our product) the ID of any pre-existing
FreeAgent contacts and/or possibly the ID of any new contacts entered at
the FreeAgent end.

It’s looking like we might have to rely on our users’ ability to extract
the ID from the URL or else bite the bullet and write a nice interface for
them.

Thanks for your help!
-Kevin

On Wednesday, 26 June 2013 21:22:36 UTC+12, Harry wrote:

Hi Kevin,

From your original email you say you “would then like to be able to
offer to create any missing Contacts automatically in FreeAgent and assign
them the Contact ID specified on the invoice”. If you already know a
contact is missing in FreeAgent you could create that contact using the API
as documented (https://dev.freeagent.com/**docs/contactshttps://dev.freeagent.com/docs/contacts)
using the information you have in your system. When the contact is created
you will get back the FreeAgent ID for that contact which you can save in
the freeagent_contact_id field. Would this solve your problem?

–
Regards,
Harry Mills

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Kevin Williams wooll...@gmail.comwrote:

Nic and Dogmatic,

Yes, we have a field in our system that can be used to map in the
direction from our own contacts to external system’s such as FreeAgent and
we can make use of it.

In that case, is there a user friendly way for a user to obtain the
FreeAgent contact code so they can then type it into our system’s mapping
field?

At the moment (unless I’m missing something) it’s looking like we’ll
need to tell them something like “For each of your Contacts, open it in
FreeAgent, look at the funny number at the end of the URL and then type
that number into our mapping field. Whenever you create a new contact you
will need to go through this same process”.

We have many customers using our system (although not all of them use
FreeAgent) and there are bound to be at least some that might struggle to
understand this.

I realise that if need be I could create some kind of interface in our
system that eased the process… for instance something that downloaded all
the FreeAgent contacts, checked their names against the ones we have in our
system and auto-populates or auto suggests the IDs based on name matches.
However I don’t think my project manager would want me to spend the time
doing this if we instead had a process that 95% of users could follow to
enter them in manually.

Thanks for your responses and any other ideas welcome!

-Kevin Williams

On Friday, 21 June 2013 17:04:55 UTC+12, Kevin Williams wrote:

Hi,

Is it possible to specify the ID that is assigned to newly created
Contacts or is this automatically generated by FreeAgent?

Alternatively, is there any kind of external reference field we could
use to help us map our own Contact Codes to FreeAgent Contact IDs?

I’m asking because we wish do the following…

Just prior to creating invoices in FreeAgent, we currently check (by
ID) if any Contacts are missing from FreeAgent (this part works fine).
However we would then like to be able to offer to create any missing
Contacts automatically in FreeAgent and assign them the Contact ID
specified on the invoice.

Thanks
-Kevin Williams

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4

Nic and Dogmatic,

Yes, we have a field in our system that can be used to map in the direction
from our own contacts to external system’s such as FreeAgent and we can
make use of it.

In that case, is there a user friendly way for a user to obtain the
FreeAgent contact code so they can then type it into our system’s mapping
field?

At the moment (unless I’m missing something) it’s looking like we’ll need
to tell them something like “For each of your Contacts, open it in
FreeAgent, look at the funny number at the end of the URL and then type
that number into our mapping field. Whenever you create a new contact you
will need to go through this same process”.

We have many customers using our system (although not all of them use
FreeAgent) and there are bound to be at least some that might struggle to
understand this.

I realise that if need be I could create some kind of interface in our
system that eased the process… for instance something that downloaded all
the FreeAgent contacts, checked their names against the ones we have in our
system and auto-populates or auto suggests the IDs based on name matches.
However I don’t think my project manager would want me to spend the time
doing this if we instead had a process that 95% of users could follow to
enter them in manually.

Thanks for your responses and any other ideas welcome!

-Kevin WilliamsOn Friday, 21 June 2013 17:04:55 UTC+12, Kevin Williams wrote:

Hi,

Is it possible to specify the ID that is assigned to newly created
Contacts or is this automatically generated by FreeAgent?

Alternatively, is there any kind of external reference field we could use
to help us map our own Contact Codes to FreeAgent Contact IDs?

I’m asking because we wish do the following…

Just prior to creating invoices in FreeAgent, we currently check (by ID)
if any Contacts are missing from FreeAgent (this part works fine). However
we would then like to be able to offer to create any missing Contacts
automatically in FreeAgent and assign them the Contact ID specified on the
invoice.

Thanks
-Kevin Williams

5

when you create a contact (or most other things), you get the ID back

Response:

Status: 201 Created
Location: http://api.freeagent.com/v2/contacts/70

Just greb the location header… (and possibly manipulate it a little
to just get /v2/contacts/70, or just 70, out of the URL)On 21 June 2013 06:04, Kevin Williams woollyyams@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,

Is it possible to specify the ID that is assigned to newly created Contacts
or is this automatically generated by FreeAgent?

Alternatively, is there any kind of external reference field we could use to
help us map our own Contact Codes to FreeAgent Contact IDs?

I’m asking because we wish do the following…

Just prior to creating invoices in FreeAgent, we currently check (by ID) if
any Contacts are missing from FreeAgent (this part works fine). However we
would then like to be able to offer to create any missing Contacts
automatically in FreeAgent and assign them the Contact ID specified on the
invoice.

Thanks
-Kevin Williams

–
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Nic Wise
t. +44 7788 592 806 | @fastchicken
b. http://www.fastchicken.co.nz/

6

Hi Kevin,

I think you will need to rely on users getting the number from the URL if
you don’t want to design an interface to support importing FreeAgent
contacts in to your system. Once all the users in FreeAgent have been
matched up correctly though you can synchronise new FreeAgent contacts
automatically by detecting a FreeAgent contact with an ID you don’t already
have stored and creating a corresponding contact in your system using the
FreeAgent data. This would mean users only need to match the ID in the URL
for contacts that are already in both systems that aren’t already
synchronised.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Harry MillsOn Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Kevin Williams woollyyams@gmail.comwrote:

Hi Harry,

Yes the idea you describe is a good one and in fact I think we decided
something like it could be used as part of our solution. =)

I guess the remaining minor issue for us now is how we can most easily
allow our users to enter/map (into our product) the ID of any pre-existing
FreeAgent contacts and/or possibly the ID of any new contacts entered at
the FreeAgent end.

It’s looking like we might have to rely on our users’ ability to extract
the ID from the URL or else bite the bullet and write a nice interface for
them.

Thanks for your help!
-Kevin

On Wednesday, 26 June 2013 21:22:36 UTC+12, Harry wrote:

Hi Kevin,

From your original email you say you “would then like to be able to
offer to create any missing Contacts automatically in FreeAgent and assign
them the Contact ID specified on the invoice”. If you already know a
contact is missing in FreeAgent you could create that contact using the API
as documented (https://dev.freeagent.com/**docs/contactshttps://dev.freeagent.com/docs/contacts)
using the information you have in your system. When the contact is created
you will get back the FreeAgent ID for that contact which you can save in
the freeagent_contact_id field. Would this solve your problem?

–
Regards,
Harry Mills

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Kevin Williams wooll...@gmail.comwrote:

Nic and Dogmatic,

Yes, we have a field in our system that can be used to map in the
direction from our own contacts to external system’s such as FreeAgent and
we can make use of it.

In that case, is there a user friendly way for a user to obtain the
FreeAgent contact code so they can then type it into our system’s mapping
field?

At the moment (unless I’m missing something) it’s looking like we’ll
need to tell them something like “For each of your Contacts, open it in
FreeAgent, look at the funny number at the end of the URL and then type
that number into our mapping field. Whenever you create a new contact you
will need to go through this same process”.

We have many customers using our system (although not all of them use
FreeAgent) and there are bound to be at least some that might struggle to
understand this.

I realise that if need be I could create some kind of interface in our
system that eased the process… for instance something that downloaded all
the FreeAgent contacts, checked their names against the ones we have in our
system and auto-populates or auto suggests the IDs based on name matches.
However I don’t think my project manager would want me to spend the time
doing this if we instead had a process that 95% of users could follow to
enter them in manually.

Thanks for your responses and any other ideas welcome!

-Kevin Williams

On Friday, 21 June 2013 17:04:55 UTC+12, Kevin Williams wrote:

Hi,

Is it possible to specify the ID that is assigned to newly created
Contacts or is this automatically generated by FreeAgent?

Alternatively, is there any kind of external reference field we could
use to help us map our own Contact Codes to FreeAgent Contact IDs?

I’m asking because we wish do the following…

Just prior to creating invoices in FreeAgent, we currently check (by
ID) if any Contacts are missing from FreeAgent (this part works fine).
However we would then like to be able to offer to create any missing
Contacts automatically in FreeAgent and assign them the Contact ID
specified on the invoice.

Thanks
-Kevin Williams

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7

Hi Harry,

Yes the idea you describe is a good one and in fact I think we decided
something like it could be used as part of our solution. =)

I guess the remaining minor issue for us now is how we can most easily
allow our users to enter/map (into our product) the ID of any pre-existing
FreeAgent contacts and/or possibly the ID of any new contacts entered at
the FreeAgent end.

It’s looking like we might have to rely on our users’ ability to extract
the ID from the URL or else bite the bullet and write a nice interface for
them.

Thanks for your help!
-KevinOn Wednesday, 26 June 2013 21:22:36 UTC+12, Harry wrote:

Hi Kevin,

From your original email you say you “would then like to be able to offer
to create any missing Contacts automatically in FreeAgent and assign them
the Contact ID specified on the invoice”. If you already know a contact is
missing in FreeAgent you could create that contact using the API as
documented (FreeAgent Developer Dashboard) using the
information you have in your system. When the contact is created you will
get back the FreeAgent ID for that contact which you can save in the
freeagent_contact_id field. Would this solve your problem?

–
Regards,
Harry Mills

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Kevin Williams <wooll...@gmail.com<javascript:> wrote:

Nic and Dogmatic,

Yes, we have a field in our system that can be used to map in the
direction from our own contacts to external system’s such as FreeAgent and
we can make use of it.

In that case, is there a user friendly way for a user to obtain the
FreeAgent contact code so they can then type it into our system’s mapping
field?

At the moment (unless I’m missing something) it’s looking like we’ll need
to tell them something like “For each of your Contacts, open it in
FreeAgent, look at the funny number at the end of the URL and then type
that number into our mapping field. Whenever you create a new contact you
will need to go through this same process”.

We have many customers using our system (although not all of them use
FreeAgent) and there are bound to be at least some that might struggle to
understand this.

I realise that if need be I could create some kind of interface in our
system that eased the process… for instance something that downloaded all
the FreeAgent contacts, checked their names against the ones we have in our
system and auto-populates or auto suggests the IDs based on name matches.
However I don’t think my project manager would want me to spend the time
doing this if we instead had a process that 95% of users could follow to
enter them in manually.

Thanks for your responses and any other ideas welcome!

-Kevin Williams

On Friday, 21 June 2013 17:04:55 UTC+12, Kevin Williams wrote:

Hi,

Is it possible to specify the ID that is assigned to newly created
Contacts or is this automatically generated by FreeAgent?

Alternatively, is there any kind of external reference field we could
use to help us map our own Contact Codes to FreeAgent Contact IDs?

I’m asking because we wish do the following…

Just prior to creating invoices in FreeAgent, we currently check (by ID)
if any Contacts are missing from FreeAgent (this part works fine). However
we would then like to be able to offer to create any missing Contacts
automatically in FreeAgent and assign them the Contact ID specified on the
invoice.

Thanks
-Kevin Williams

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8

You should be able to create / store a map in your own application for
that. maybe in your users just add a freeagent_contact_id field or similar.On Friday, 21 June 2013 06:04:55 UTC+1, Kevin Williams wrote:

Hi,

Is it possible to specify the ID that is assigned to newly created
Contacts or is this automatically generated by FreeAgent?

Alternatively, is there any kind of external reference field we could use
to help us map our own Contact Codes to FreeAgent Contact IDs?

I’m asking because we wish do the following…

Just prior to creating invoices in FreeAgent, we currently check (by ID)
if any Contacts are missing from FreeAgent (this part works fine). However
we would then like to be able to offer to create any missing Contacts
automatically in FreeAgent and assign them the Contact ID specified on the
invoice.

Thanks
-Kevin Williams