pco_api

pco_api is a Rubygem that provides a simple wrapper around our RESTful JSON API at https://api.planningcenteronline.com.

Installation

gem install pco_api

Usage

1. Create a new API object, passing in your credentials (either HTTP Basic or OAuth2 access token):

   # authenticate with HTTP Basic:
   api = PCO::API.new(basic_auth_token: 'token', basic_auth_secret: 'secret')
   # ...or authenticate with an OAuth2 access token (use the 'oauth2' gem to obtain the token)
   api = PCO::API.new(oauth_access_token: 'token')

2. Chain path elements together as method calls.

   api.people.v2.households
   # /people/v2/households

3. For IDs, treat the object like a hash (use square brackets).

   api.people.v2.households[1]
   # /people/v2/households/1

4. To execute the request, use get, post, patch, or delete, optionally passing arguments.

   api.people.v2.households.get(order: 'name')
   # GET /people/v2/households?order=name

5. To query dataset according to can_query_by variables:

   api.people.v2.people.get('where[membership]': 'Member')
   # GET /people/v2/people?where[membership]=Member

Example

require 'pco_api'

api = PCO::API.new(basic_auth_token: 'token', basic_auth_secret: 'secret')
api.people.v2.people.get(order: 'last_name')

...which returns something like:

{
  "links" => {
    "self" => "https://api.planningcenteronline.com/people/v2/people?order=last_name",
    "next" => "https://api.planningcenteronline.com/people/v2/people?offset=25&order=last_name"
  },
  "data"=> [
    {
      "type" => "Person",
      "id" => "271",
      "attributes" => {
        "first_name" => "Jean",
        "middle_name" => nil,
        "last_name" => "Abernathy",
        "birthdate" => "1885-01-01",
        "anniversary" => nil,
        "gender" => "F",
        "grade" => -1,
        "child" => false,
        "status" => "active",
        "school_type" => nil,
        "graduation_year" => nil,
        "site_administrator" => false,
        "people_permissions" => nil,
        "created_at" => "2015-04-01T20:18:22Z",
        "updated_at" => "2015-04-10T18:59:51Z",
        "avatar" => nil,
      },
      "links" => {
        "self" => "https://api.planningcenteronline.com/people/v2/people/271"
      }
    },
    # ...
  ],
  "meta" => {
    "total_count" => 409,
    "count" => 25,
    "next" => {
      "offset" => 25
    },
    "can_order_by" => [
      "first_name",
      "middle_name",
      "last_name",
      "birthdate",
      "anniversary",
      "gender",
      "grade",
      "child",
      "status",
      "school_type",
      "graduation_year",
      "site_administrator",
      "people_permissions",
      "created_at",
      "updated_at"
    ],
    "can_query_by" => [
      "first_name",
      "middle_name",
      "last_name",
      "birthdate",
      "anniversary",
      "gender",
      "grade",
      "child",
      "status",
      "school_type",
      "graduation_year",
      "site_administrator",
      "people_permissions",
      "created_at",
      "updated_at"
    ],
    "can_include" => [
      "emails",
      "addresses",
      "phone_numbers",
      "households",
      "school",
      "inactive_reason",
      "marital_status",
      "name_prefix",
      "name_suffix",
      "field_data",
      "apps"
    ],
    "parent" => {
      "id" => "1",
      "type" => "Organization"
    }
  }
}

get()

get() works for a collection (index) and a single resource (show).

# collection
api.people.v2.people.get(order: 'last_name')
# => { data: array_of_resources }

# single resource
api.people.v2.people[1].get
# => { data: resource_hash }

post()

post() sends a POST request to create a new resource. You must wrap your resource with a { data: { ... } } hash.

api.people.v2.people.post(data: { type: 'Person', attributes: { first_name: 'Tim', last_name: 'Morgan' } })
# => { data: resource_hash }

patch()

patch() sends a PATCH request to update an existing resource. You must wrap your resource with a { data: { ... } } hash.

api.people.v2.people[1].patch(data: { type: 'Person', id: 1, attributes: { first_name: 'Tim', last_name: 'Morgan' } })
# => { data: resource_hash }

delete()

delete() sends a DELETE request to delete an existing resource. This method returns true if the delete was successful.

api.people.v2.people[1].delete
# => true

Errors

The following errors may be raised by the library, depending on the API response status code.

HTTP Status Codes	Error Class
400	PCO::API::Errors::BadRequest < PCO::API::Errors::ClientError
401	PCO::API::Errors::Unauthorized < PCO::API::Errors::ClientError
403	PCO::API::Errors::Forbidden < PCO::API::Errors::ClientError
404	PCO::API::Errors::NotFound < PCO::API::Errors::ClientError
405	PCO::API::Errors::MethodNotAllowed < PCO::API::Errors::ClientError
422	PCO::API::Errors::UnprocessableEntity < PCO::API::Errors::ClientError
429	PCO::API::Errors::TooManyRequests < PCO::API::Errors::ClientError
other 4xx errors	PCO::API::Errors::ClientError
500	PCO::API::Errors::InternalServerError < PCO::API::Errors::ServerError
other 5xx errors	PCO::API::Errors::ServerError

The exception object has the following methods:

Method	Content
status	HTTP status code returned by the server
message	the message returned by the API
detail	the full error response returned by the API
headers	hash of HTTP headers returned by the API

The message should be a simple string given by the API, e.g. "Resource Not Found".

In the case of validation errors, the message is a summary string built from the raw detail.

Alternatively, you may rescue PCO::API::Errors::BaseError and branch your code based on the status code returned by calling error.status.

TooManyRequests Error

By default, PCO::API::Endpoint will sleep and retry a request that fails with TooManyRequests due to rate limiting. If you would rather catch and handle such errors yourself, you can disable this behavior like this:

api = PCO::API.new(...)
api.retry_when_rate_limited = false

Copyright & License

Copyright Ministry Centered Technologies. Licensed MIT.