Does Calira have any APIs available?
Yes. Calira provides a REST API that lets you read data from your Calira account programmatically. This is useful for connecting Calira to BI tools, internal dashboards, data warehouses, or custom applications.
What the API provides
The API uses OAuth 2.0 authentication and supports five read scopes:
- Read user details: access user profile information
- Read accounts: access lab and account structure
- Read equipment: access equipment records and metadata
- Read projects: access: list projects or get details about one project
- Read bookings: access booking data, including times, users, status, group details, and project details
Who can use the API
The API is available to customers on plans that include API access. You need to be a lab administrator in Calira to set up API credentials. Contact the Calira team if you are unsure whether your plan includes API access.
How to set up API access
1. Create an application
- Log in to your Calira account as an administrator
- Navigate to the API applications page (https://app.clustermarket.com/oauth/applications/new)
- Fill in the application details:
- Name: a label for your integration (e.g. “BI Dashboard”)
- Company name and Website URL: your organisation’s details
- Scopes: toggle on the data types you need access to
- Confidential: enable this if your application can securely store the client secret (recommended for server-side applications)
- Callback URL: the URL your application will redirect to after authentication. If you are only reading data (not building a user-facing app), any valid URL works
- Click Save
2. Copy your credentials
After saving, you will see a Client ID and Client Secret. Copy both: these are the credentials your application will use to authenticate. Keep them secure.
3. Authorise access to your labs
- Click Authorise on your application page
- Select the labs you want the API to access
- Click Authorise to confirm
You will be redirected to your callback URL with an authorisation code in the URL.
4. Exchange the code for tokens
Use the authorisation code to obtain access and refresh tokens:
- Authorisation URL: https://app.clustermarket.com/oauth/authorize
- Token URL: https://app.clustermarket.com/oauth/token
You can use tools like Postman or Insomnia to test the OAuth flow and retrieve your tokens. The access token expires periodically — use the refresh token to obtain a new one without re-authenticating.
Common use cases
- BI and reporting: pull booking and utilisation data into tools like Power BI, Tableau, or Google Sheets for custom usage reporting
- Internal dashboards: build live views of equipment usage, booking patterns, or maintenance schedules
- Data warehousing: feed Calira data into a central data lake alongside ELN, LIMS, and other lab system data
- Custom integrations: connect Calira to internal tools or workflows not covered by the built-in integrations