Alliance Integration / XML API

Alliance Requester / Integration XML API

Using the Alliance Requester Service (our name for the XML API ), you can seamlessly integrate multiple Alliance functionalities into your web site, e-commerce environment, intranet or other online system. Detailed instructions that allow your IT department or outsourced IT firm to easily create custom applications are included.

Documentation

Sample Code

FAQ

Support Forums

Requester Overview

The Alliance Requester works by performing the following basic steps:

1. Construct Request

Create a request transaction in a buffer in accordance with the syntactic and semantic rules of the transaction set to which the transaction belongs, so the Alliance servers can interpret the transaction.

2. Pass Request to Alliance

Pass the transaction to the Alliance Requester URL and wait for a response from the Alliance Gateway server. All Transactions are conducted in synchronous mode, meaning you send a request then wait for the response.

3. Parse Response

Parse and interpret the response transaction according to the syntactic and semantic rules of its transaction set, resulting in a set of data items.

4. Distribute Response Items

Copy those data items into database records or other locations, as appropriate.

Development Process

To create an application using the Alliance Requester, follow these steps:

Identify the production platform and system under which the application will run.
Examine the API docs to determine exactly how and where you need to integrate the API into it.
Determine what development resources will be needed, such as compilers and editors.
Ensure that the identified system has Internet connectivity.
Setup your development system that mirrors the production system.
Study the descriptions of the various functions, and make sure that you have a thorough understanding of them.
Familiarize yourself with XML transaction syntax and the content of the particular request (and their corresponding responses).
Design a plan to determine what programming is needed to integrate the API into your application.
Perform the necessary development to create the desired application.
Test your application.