Overview

Introduction

Experian® Connected Platform API offers a suite of API endpoints centered around the REST architecture.

Our API communicates using JSON over HTTP with errors being returned as standard Status codes as well as additional information in the response bodies as error and error_description.

There are two environments available within the API: Sandbox and Live.

Authentication

Experian® Connected Platform uses OAuth 2.0 token-based authentication. To retrieve a new token, a partner submits Tenant credentials for each environment.

The API provides two types of access tokens, to learn more refer to Platform authentication

The tokens expire after a certain amount of time depending on the environment you are working with. You have 24 hours for a token in the Sandbox and 1 hour for Live environments respectively. Subsequent API calls made with an invalid or expired token will fail.

An exception to token expiration is the KBA verification process, which requires a one-time token.

Status Codes and Errors

Experian® Connected Platform API uses standard HTTP response codes to indicate the status of API responses. The following table highlights important status codes and their meaning.

In addition to the response codes, the error responses will provide detailed information about what went wrong with the request.

Sample of invalid request:

curl --request GET \
  --url "https://sandbox.connected-api.experian.com/customers/cus_01J0P9CYJT4R32SDQ5X7APN8NA?email_address=may6%40experian.com'" \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer INVALID_AUTH_TOKEN'

In this example above the email_address query parameter is an invalid parameter. This results in the response code of 400 and an object with an error object being returned.

The error object will have an code field that is the title of the error, a message field that provides additional details on why the request failed and a dev_url field that provides a URL to the development portal which contains more information about the type of error that was relevant with the request.

Sample error response:

{
   "error": {
       "type":"INVALID_REQUEST_ERROR",
       "code": "INVALID_REQUEST",
       "message": "[email_address] parameters are not defined in API spec.",
       "dev_url": "https://experian-group.readme.io/display/reference/ref-api-reference-errors"
   }
}

Pagination

Connected Platform APIs that return a list of items support cursor-based pagination.

Request structure

When working with any API that accepts cursor-based pagination, the following parameters can be used to implement pagination in your API calls.

Parameters

cursorstring (optional) default is the first page

A cursor refers to a unique random string of characters which marks a specific item in a list of data. This is the cursor for the current page.

countnumber (optional) default is 10

The number of results per page, ranging between 1 and 25.

Response structure

Each endpoint that supports cursor-based pagination has the following response structure.

next_cursorstring

The cursor value for the next page, used in subsequent request to fetch data for the next page of results.

previous_cursorstring

The cursor value for the previous page, used in subsequent request to fetch data for the previous page of results.

itemsarray

An array containing the response elements with restrictions based on query parameters provided in the request.

Sample response

{
    "next_cursor": "ZW50XzAxR0RYN1I2MVFaTlNSTjZGOTkxNjk5NTVO",
    "previous_cursor": "ZW50XzAxR0RKWTVITk00QTY4UzhSRloxNERYMzVX",
    "items": [
        {
            "customer_id": "cus_01JGYJHMSVHRCA2G2HZHRT9DJN",
            "first_name": "John",
            "last_name": "Smith",
            "created_at": "2025-01-06T19:47:53.377+00:00",
            "updated_at": "2025-01-10T21:42:26.554+00:00"
        },
        {
            "customer_id": "cus_01JHN4N1CTXYMW1GGGJXDKP3VD",
            "first_name": "John",
            "last_name": "Smith",
            "created_at": "2025-01-15T14:07:36.478+00:00",
            "updated_at": "2025-01-15T14:07:36.478+00:00"
        },
        ...
    ]
}

Correlation IDs

Every API request has a unique request id that it is associated with. This can be found under the x-correlation-id field in the response header of any return value from an API endpoint.

If there is a problem with a specific request, providing the x-correlation-id in the ticket will streamline the resolution process.

Versioning

Experian® Connected Platform API releases can be classified into four categories.

Major1.x.x

Indicates a breaking change in the service. Major version changes may included the removal or behavioral change of an API endpoint that makes it backwards-incompatible with previous versions.

Minorx.1.x

Indicates a backwards-compatible change in the service. Minor version changes may include adding a new API endpoint, or a behavioral change in terms of a refactor or an addition to the feature set.

Breaking changes

A breaking change is classified as a modification in the API feature set that is backwards-incompatible, meaning that applications using the old version may encounter errors if they are not updated to adapt to the changes.

Changes to endpoint routes

The naming convention for the API endpoint has changed. This results in the old endpoint being non-functional.

Modifications to request or response structure

Renaming or removing fields in the API response or request composition. This can include changing the default behavior of endpoints.

Modification to error handling

Altering the structure of error messages or error codes.