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An Introduction to Preservica's APIs - Recording

  • May 20, 2026
  • 5 replies
  • 166 views
Paul Clark
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Preservica provides a very powerful suite of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).  They are used not only by Preservica's own software but by many of our customers both large and small. 

These APIs help to perform a broad range of every day tasks, including, but not limited to, ingesting content, searching for assets, advanced reporting, the completion of repetitive tasks to name but a few. 
APIs may seem complex at first but they are for everyone.

Join Andy Dean from the Preservica Professional Services team for an introduction to the Preservica APIs along with demonstrations, and next steps to get you started using the APIs.

The session will cover:

  • Introduction
  • What are APIs and how do they work?
  • This sounds technical - how do I make use of APIs
  • An Introduction to Preservica’s APIs:
    • Preservica's Interactive Documentation
    • Alternative tools - Postman
  • Getting Started 
  • The Preservica PS team's API toolkit - some examples 
  • A Note on Preservica Editions and APIs 
  • Q&A

Access the recording of this training session from March 2026 here

Paul Clark

    5 replies

    J
    • julzinseattle
    • New Participant
    • July 14, 2026

    I have a list of IO’s. Do you know if there’s an API call to reindex them in batches?

    Thanks

    A

    Hi,

     

    You can submit a list of UUIDs  to the “Workflow API” and this will start the background task to re-index those UUIDS.

    Have a look at 

    https://demo.preservica.com/sdb/rest/workflow/documentation.html#/%2F/post_instances

    You can feed a comma separated list of UUIDs into the above endpoint (within the required xml payload), whilst noting that a maximum of 500 UUIDs per API call is efficient.

    You can actually submit the API call within the above page by clicking “Try it now”

     

    You’ll need the workflow context ID for the “re-index” workflow (assuming this is enabled and configured in your system). You can get the list of available context IDs using:

    https://demo.preservica.com/sdb/rest/workflow/documentation.html#/%2F/get_contexts

     

    Typically we would use a small python script to process lists of UUIDs in this way.

     

    regards

    Andy

      J
      • julzinseattle
      • New Participant
      • July 14, 2026

      Thanks Andy. When I try the api for my IOref (0008aaa4-9986-4f23-a1bf-1ff493ece591) I get the following error in the workflow history.
      Do you know what the “Key” would be? 

      PRES_FIND_ENTITIES_01 No entities specified   Error

       I’ve tried DeliverableUnit and Ref I continue to get “No entities found” 

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
      <StartWorkflowRequest xmlns="http://workflow.preservica.com">
          <WorkflowContextId>158</WorkflowContextId>
          <WorkflowContextName>Re-index (v6)-Metadata Only</WorkflowContextName>
          <Parameter>
              <Key>Entity</Key>
              <Value>0008aaa4-9986-4f23-a1bf-1ff493ece591</Value>
          </Parameter>
          <CorrelationId>string</CorrelationId>
      </StartWorkflowRequest>
       

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
        <WorkflowInstance xmlns="http://workflow.preservica.com">
          <Id>50971</Id>
          <CorrelationToken>string</CorrelationToken>
          <Started>2026-07-14T15:42:08.469-07:00</Started>
          <State>ACTIVE</State>
          <DisplayState>Active</DisplayState>
          <ArchivalProcessId>50971</ArchivalProcessId>
          <WorkflowGroupId>d33c96b6-c84f-417b-96f3-1238b8ad2a62</WorkflowGroupId>
          <WorkflowContextId>158</WorkflowContextId>
          <WorkflowContextName>Re-index (v6)-Metadata Only</WorkflowContextName>
          <WorkflowDefinitionTextId>com.preservica.core.workflow.reindex</WorkflowDefinitionTextId>
          <WorkflowDefinitionName>Re-index (v6)</WorkflowDefinitionName>
          <Creator>juliol</Creator>
        </WorkflowInstance>
      A

      Hi julzinseattle,

       

      The parameter key value is “EntityRefs”.  For example:

      <Parameter>    <Key>EntityRefs</Key>    <Value>123456789-12345-12345-134356, 123456789-12345-12345-987654</Value></Parameter>

       

      regards

       

      Andy

       

       

       

       

        J
        • julzinseattle
        • New Participant
        • July 15, 2026

        Love it. That worked and we’re on our way. Thanks for your help Andy.

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