Start Here (Brand New Integration)

This guide will walk you through everything to get started up to pushing a contact into Follow Up Boss.

• Registering your system key for request HTTP headers
• Using HTTP Basic Auth to send Follow Up Boss User's API Key
• Creating a trial Follow Up Boss account so that you can see the result of your API requests in Follow Up Boss
• Sending in a contact to Follow Up Boss

Registering your system key

Every request to the API should include the registered 'X-System' and 'X-System-Key' headers. These headers are unique to your system and should be the same for every API request regardless of the Follow Up User's API Key.
Register your system here: Registration

The HTTP headers in the API requests should look like this:

X-System: AwesomeWebsiteBuilder
X-System-Key: 560270f7914b5b4a5f4dc1793ebc2796

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System Headers vs API Key

Both are required in every HTTP API request. The System Headers identify (you) the system sending the request. The API Key identifies the Follow Up Boss user and account.

Additional details about system key are here: Identification

Sending Follow Up Boss User's API Key

Every user in Follow Up Boss has a unique API Key that can be obtained from "Admin" -> "API" screen. External applications use API Key to get authenticated and read/update data in Follow Up Boss on the user's behalf.

Authentication is done with HTTP Basic Authentication over HTTPS. Use API Key as the username and leave the password blank (or you can put any value as password if your HTTP client requires it).

Example of sending an API Key (fka_0qaLqXMChGLM4y27M4fJ9yYoajevmePhPU) in a Curl Request:

curl https://api.followupboss.com/me
   -u "fka_0qaLqXMChGLM4y27M4fJ9yYoajevmePhPU:"

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HTTPS Only

Follow Up Boss API is available via HTTPS only. This ensures that API Key is always encrypted during transmission. API Key provides the same privileges as the user's login credentials and should be handled securely.

For more details about API Key and role permission levels: Authentication

Creating a trial Follow Up Boss account

Create a trial account here: https://app.followupboss.com/signup
This is a 14 day free trial account. When you are confident with your intention to build an integration or need more time to decide you can email [email protected] to request an extension or conversion to a dev account which never expires.

This is a full-featured account so you will be able to experience Follow Up Boss as any customer would.

Generate an API Key in your Follow Up Boss account

Go to Admin -> API and Generate a new key. You customer will go here to generate an API Key to provide to you. The name would likely be the name of your service.

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API Key only displayed once when created.

Make sure to copy the API key at the time it is created. You will not be able to retrieve it later. You will be able to generate another key if it is lost.

With your system registered, trial account created and API Key generated, you are ready to make your first API Request.

Sending in a contact to Follow Up Boss

The events endpoint is the preferred way to send in contacts. Leads are typically generated from a specific marketing event (Showing request, Home Search Registration etc...) so the events endpoint captures the lead contact data as well as the event data.

POST https://api.followupboss.com/v1/events
{
    "source": "MyAwesomeWebsite.com",
    "system": "AwesomeSiteBuilder",
    "type": "General Inquiry",
    "message": "Looking for a house under $500k in the East Boston area",
    "person": {
        "firstName": "John",
        "lastName": "Smith",
        "emails": [{"value": "[email protected]"}],
        "phones": [{"value": "555-555-5555"}]
    }
}

You should receive a 200 status code if successful.
Go to People in Follow Up Boss to see the contact.

Click on the contact name to see their details. The event will be displayed in the timeline.

Congrats on integrating with Follow Up Boss. Discover what else is possible by reading about all the API endpoints, webhooks and embedded apps.

• Endpoint Reference
• Webhooks
• Embedded App