Introduction to the Transactional API
TimeLog API is built on Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation or WCF. It exposes a set of web services that can be accessed through the SOAP protocol. The API is exposed through a number of namespace specific web services. Each web service is responsible for servicing methods to interact with the object model within the namespace. E.g. the Security web Service will expose methods needed to authenticate API users.
The API is grouped into modules that will activate the methods needed to support a given area of work. E.g. the time registration module will activate a number of methods in the ProjectManagement web services but not necessarily all of them. This will allow you to limit the access to the API to a minimum and thereby limiting the data exposed through the API.
Data Object Structure
The API exposes the domain objects of TimeLog. Often when interacting with domain objects you need meta data on the objects such as main information on parent objects, details about dimensions or status etc. E.g. when working with time registrations (WorkUnit object) you might like to know which customer, project or task the time is tracked on. If the API contained only raw domain objects you would have to load each of these objects through calls to the API. TimeLog API provides a details section with every domain object - the Details-property. This property contains a compressed set of data of relevant meta data. Some of the data in the details property is encapsulated in "header" objects. Header objects is the essential data of the full object. So in the WorkUnit object (time registration) details section you will find a CustomerHeader object which gives you the most important information on the customer to be displayed with the work unit, saving you from requesting the customer through the API.
API Support Policy
TimeLog guarantees solutions build on a given version of the TimeLog API will work three years from the release of that specific version. E.g. CRM Service v1.3 was released December 2014 and will be supported at least until December 2017.
If a solution is upgraded from one version of the API to a newer version, no guarantee is given that the solution will still work. TimeLog will provide updated documentation for new versions of the API.