API integrations are a major focus for Castfire, with many of our clients never logging into the CMS to manage their solutions. Our REST based API allows for full control of the platform from website CMS’s, digital asset managers or backend systems. This follows with our philosophy of handling all of the details around publishing audio and video  allowing you, the publisher, to focus on content and audience. The API currently has 37 different methods to have complete control over your publishing solution.  To make the process of integration even easier, we are releasing foreign key functionality.

If you are a developer, you can skip directly to our API docs.

If you are not a developer, here is a non-technical description:

You have two books in your library and you have numbered them:

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

You always know that book #1 is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and #2 is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  These, in essence, are your primary keys. They are unique to both books in your library.

Now, you loan your books to your friend, Tom, who has a library of 1,000 books. He also numbers his books from 1 to 1,000. However, books #1 and #2 are:

1. The Tower Treasure
2. The House on the Cliff

If you were to speak with Tom about book #1 (his primary key), he would think you are speaking about The Tower Treasure and not Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – quite confusing. You would have to remember when speaking to Tom, your books are #1001 and #1002 in his library.

To you, #1 is your primary key and #1001 is your foreign key. To Tom, #1001 is his primary key and #1 is his foreign key. It gets hard to manage!

What if Tom always knew, when speaking with you, that your book #1  is actually his book #1001?  And your book #2 is actually his book #1002? It would make life a lot easier as you don’t have to keep track of his keys.

That is – in very basic terms – what we have released in our API. Instead of using our show_id (our primary key) when talking to Castfire via the API, you can use your primary key to reference the show. It makes integrations with 3rd party content management and digital asset managements systems even easier. There are less keys to be stored in your system.

I am impressed if you have made it this far! This may sound esoteric, however, it lowers the burden of system integration a great bit allowing for faster implementations. If you have questions regarding our API, feel free to contact support (support@castfire.com, web).