Expanded support for response formats

October 10, 2024

We're excited to announce that Unified.to now supports multiple response formats for our API! This expansion gives you more flexibility in how you receive and process data from our endpoints. Let's dive into the new formats, how to use them, and see some examples.

Supported formats

We now support the following response formats:

1. JSON (default)
2. CSV (Comma-Separated Values)
3. XML
4. SCIM+JSON (for SCIM and HR endpoints)
5. NDJSON (Newline Delimited JSON)

Using the new formats

To specify your desired response format, simply set the Accept header in your API request. Here's how to request each format:

• JSON: Accept: application/json (default if not specified)
• CSV: Accept: text/csv
• XML: Accept: text/xml
• SCIM+JSON: Accept: application/scim+json
• NDJSON: Accept: application/ndjson

For more information, refer to the REST API guide in our developer docs.

Examples

Let's look at examples of each format. These are all the result of calling:

https://api.unified.to/hris/6706e360d69e7ef6d1350495/employee?limit=3&fields=name,title,id

JSON (default)

[
    {
        "id": "3a96751f-3bff-4bf1-9586-564bb824a220",
        "name": "Delaney OHara",
        "title": "Chief Paradigm Executive"
    },
    {
        "id": "4b21c926-9d7b-4fe8-bcb7-25b25d9b8a18",
        "name": "Cruz Bode",
        "title": "Central Optimization Technician"
    },
    {
        "id": "b2e82178-40e1-4010-918a-175e5fc07723",
        "name": "Berniece Grant",
        "title": "Dynamic Brand Officer"
    }
]

CSV

id,name,title
"3a96751f-3bff-4bf1-9586-564bb824a220","Delaney OHara","Chief Paradigm Executive"
"4b21c926-9d7b-4fe8-bcb7-25b25d9b8a18","Cruz Bode","Central Optimization Technician"
"b2e82178-40e1-4010-918a-175e5fc07723","Berniece Grant","Dynamic Brand Officer"

XML

<root>
    <item>
        <id>3a96751f-3bff-4bf1-9586-564bb824a220</id>
        <name>Delaney OHara</name>
        <title>Chief Paradigm Executive</title>
    </item>
    <item>
        <id>4b21c926-9d7b-4fe8-bcb7-25b25d9b8a18</id>
        <name>Cruz Bode</name>
        <title>Central Optimization Technician</title>
    </item>
    <item>
        <id>b2e82178-40e1-4010-918a-175e5fc07723</id>
        <name>Berniece Grant</name>
        <title>Dynamic Brand Officer</title>
    </item>
</root>

SCIM+JSON

[
    {
        "name": {
            "givenName": "Delaney",
            "familyName": "OHara",
            "middleName": ""
        },
        "title": "Chief Paradigm Executive",
        "id": "3a96751f-3bff-4bf1-9586-564bb824a220"
    },
    {
        "name": {
            "givenName": "Cruz",
            "familyName": "Bode",
            "middleName": ""
        },
        "title": "Central Optimization Technician",
        "id": "4b21c926-9d7b-4fe8-bcb7-25b25d9b8a18"
    },
    {
        "name": {
            "givenName": "Berniece",
            "familyName": "Grant",
            "middleName": ""
        },
        "title": "Dynamic Brand Officer",
        "id": "b2e82178-40e1-4010-918a-175e5fc07723"
    }
]

The SCIM+JSON format is designed for our HRIS endpoints, specifically for Employee and Group data objects. This format adheres to the SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) standard, making it easier to integrate with identity management systems. To learn more about our SCIM API and how to use it, check out our SCIM API documentation.

NDJSON

{"id":"3a96751f-3bff-4bf1-9586-564bb824a220","name":"Delaney OHara","title":"Chief Paradigm Executive"}
{"id":"4b21c926-9d7b-4fe8-bcb7-25b25d9b8a18","name":"Cruz Bode","title":"Central Optimization Technician"}
{"id":"b2e82178-40e1-4010-918a-175e5fc07723","name":"Berniece Grant","title":"Dynamic Brand Officer"}

We're particularly excited about the addition of NDJSON (Newline Delimited JSON) support, which offers significant advantages for AI workflows. NDJSON's line-by-line structure makes it ideal for streaming large datasets efficiently. Many popular AI and data science tools, including Python's pandas library and various machine learning frameworks, can directly read NDJSON streams.

By supporting NDJSON, we're enabling more efficient data handling and processing in AI-driven applications, reducing latency and resource requirements in your machine learning pipelines.

Summary

We look forward to seeing how you'll use these new response formats in your applications. As always, if you have any questions or need assistance, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.

Happy building!