Interactions API Frequently Asked Questions

What is an "interaction?"

An interaction is any time there has been engagement between an organization – typically through a volunteer, organizer, or digital tool – and a person they are trying to reach like a voter, supporter, or donor. Interactions include clicking on digital ads, receiving a piece of mail, and someone reaching out in public formats like group chats and events.

What kind of user am I?

If you are an organization, campaign, or individual who owns the data being sent or received, you are a data owner. Follow the Data Owner Set Up guide.
If you are a software tool seeking to send interactions to a destination, such as a CRM or data warehouse, on behalf of a data owner, you are a data source. Follow the Data Source Set Up guide or the Quick Start for Data Sources.
If you are a software tool seeking to receive interactions data, such as a CRM, warehouse or analytics platform, you are a destination. Follow the Destination Set Up guide.

What use-cases does the Interactions API support?

As a campaign committee doing field organizing, you often need to sync data between a canvassing or voter-contact tool and your CRM or data warehouse. All you need to do to opt in is request an API Key and the destinations you will sync data do, and supply that key to your data source.
As an organizing tool, you can stream the data you generate from interacting with potential voters to an owner's data warehouse or CRM.
- You can real-time-stream responses to text message outreach or door-knocking back to VAN, Phoenix, or a partner-CRM of choice.
As a CRM, you can subscribe to real-time streaming data of voter interactions, replacing periodic syncs so you can work in real-time.

What is the difference between the Interactions API, the DXAPI, and the VAN API Proxy?

You should use the Interactions API if you are looking for a solution to send richer interactions data to a set of destinations.
You should use the DXAPI if you are looking to consolidate your integrations and send or retrieve datasets from multiple Apps in one place.
You should use the VAN API Proxy if you are using the VAN API and would like improved resiliency and visibility.

Interactions API

The Interactions API accepts individual or small-batch interactions that follow a DDX-defined schema, and streams them to destinations like a CRM or data warehouse in real-time.

The Interactions API is a RESTful API focused on interactions-type data being pushed to multiple Destinations from one Source. It enforces a schema that is defined by MIG with collaboration from partners. It is built to be performant and can handles primarily record-based objects. The Interactions API authorizes data movement through API Keys.

DXAPI

The DXAPI allows organizing tools to exchange arbitrarily large, batched datasets that are schema-agnostic.

The DXAPI is a schema-agonistic data movement platform that allows data to be pushed to MIG and pulled by multiple integrated Apps. Users of the DXAPI can permission their datasets to be available either at the point of an App sending the dataset to the DXAPI or within the MIG Console through a user interface. The DXAPI authorizes data access through the form of time-limited client tokens that are available to Apps that have been installed in a client's Workspace. The DXAPI is a highly performant solution for file-based data movement.

VAN Proxy

The VAN proxy accepts VAN traffic, and can batch traffic to mitigate load at times of high usage.

The MIG VAN Proxy is an API Proxy that introduces dynamic load balancing features in front of the VAN API. It is fully compatible with all VAN endpoints and supports all routes and request types. Through our VAN Proxy, MIG is able to provide additional insight into traffic to VAN and convert transactional requests into bulk import jobs during periods of high traffic.

Who is the Interactions API for?

The Interactions API is for anyone using outreach tools or CRMs for organizing and power building efforts. If you are a campaign, organization, outreach tool, CRM, analytics platform, or data warehouse, reach out to us to see how the Interactions API can help you!

How does the Interactions API retain data?

The Interactions API keeps records for up to 7 days in the event of an incident related to a Destination to replay requests from a certain point in time. After 7 days, these records are no longer retrievable even by MIG.

MIG maintains logs of Interactions API data for performance tracking and auditing purposes based on our data retention policy. For more information on how long this data is retained for and how it is used, please reach out to us at [email protected] or in an existing joint Slack channel if applicable.

Looking to set up a joint Slack or have a question that is not answered here?

Reach out to us at [email protected]!