Complaint about the API Manager

API Q&A
1

@Angi_Hast - I am raising a complaint that you are not managing things correctly regarding the XML-RPC sunset, nor listening to people, nor learning from past mistakes, and not understanding things.

In 2016 the REST API was introduced and it was planned to eventually replace XML-RPC. Now we are in 2026, and it still fails to be comparable to the XML-RPC. Many developers over the years have asked for things, and not everything have been implemented. Do you think what you have been provided has been sufficient? Or was you hoping that developers would not notice the missing things?

REST v1 failed to match the compatibility of XML-RPC. Why did that happened? Who was making those decisions at the time? REST v2 came afterwards which was designed to be a suitable replacement.

You set a deadline for December 2026 to sunset the XML-RPC, but the REST API still fails to be comparable to the XML-RPC. Developers are now finding more gaps, errors, and now inconsistencies against REST v1. So how can REST v2 be a suitable replacement?

It is pointless for developers to use REST v1, given that it is no longer going to be enhanced, and that will be sunset in the future as well. Otherwise if developers go down that route, they will have to make another transition again. Some developers are now waiting for your team to make the necessary enhancements.

I noticed in the REST v2 API documentation that a patch was released on November 4th. It is now January 14th, which means over 2 months have passed since anything was updated (?). Developers do not know when updates get released in the API as no announcements get made, unless the information is buried somewhere on your website? You set a deadline for us, but it could take your development team either 2,3,4 or 5 months to make the changes, then it will be a rush for developers to make changes.

In 2024 the Legacy API Key was deprecated, but several mistakes were made during that process. I suggested that an interface should be provided to help customers and developers to see what integrations are using the old key, but that was ignored. I have suggested it again for the XML-RPC API, but again you do not want to implement something to help people. We are going to have another situation where people will have to constantly ask support for information.

Another question, have you contacted the third party integration vendors that support Keap? Not every vendor is in the marketplace. And last time some vendors were contacted late during the legacy API key sunset.

My recommendations are the following below.

  • Cancel the December sunset timeline.
  • Get your development team to spend the next 6 months looking at the issues that have been raised.
  • Analyse the XML-RPC API Calls to see what developers are doing and provide suitable replacements.
  • Analyse REST v1 and find what gaps are missing in REST v2.
  • Properly test the REST v2 API.
  • Announce that is comparable to the community, partners, and vendors.
  • Sunset both the REST v1 and XML-RPC in 1 years time from that announcement.
  • At the end of sunset you will just have REST v2 in operation, it will simplify things for everyone.

Hope that was clear.

6 Likes
2

+1 for Pav’s comment.

1 Like
4

+1 Pav, on all points.

The credit card update API was another massive fumble.

Of greater concern is that multi-hour long scheduled brown outs are evidently scheduled to start in the middle of March this year.

https://learn.thryv.com/hc/en-us/articles/41056543346317-Brownout-Schedule-for-Sunsetting-XMLRPC

That is incredibly premature given the gaps in the feature set, and the rate of updates.

1 Like
5

@Angi_Hast / @OmarAlmonte

I am going to add further concerns here. Omar you keep saying the following message to people in the community “This is not currently available via REST, but the team is looking into it. I’ll provide an update as soon as I have more information.”.

As David pointed out the first Brownout scheduled is just over 7 weeks away. Developers are finding more gaps and other errors as well.

When is the Keap team planning to release an update to the API to start addressing these gaps and errors? If this is still weeks away, then I recommend you cancel the March brownout. Developers need to know the schedule of things, so that they can update their code in time, or they will have to submit an exclusion from the brownouts.

Here is another situation, what if a vendor has XML-RPC code that is being used by 100s of different customers, or if its critical to their business. The brownouts will cause disruptions in operations. They would have to tell each of their customers to be excluded from the brownouts.

Also, I would encourage other Certified Partners and Developers to raise their concerns, and not be held back by the gagging order. There is going to be different use cases where the XML-RPC is being used in a variety ways and the REST API needs to address those cases. Integrations are going to vary in size, and the bigger ones could take months to resolve.

2 Likes
6

@Pav We’ll soon be publishing a known issue tracker so that everyone can see the current status of each reported v2 gap or issue. This will help developers stay informed.

7

Hi everyone. We have published the Known Issues Tracker, a centralized resource to provide full transparency into known REST V2 issues, gaps and limitations.

The tracker will help our developer partner community by:

  • Helping you plan integrations with awareness of known issues

  • Reducing uncertainty by identifying limitations or workarounds ahead of time

  • Tracking issue status and progress in one place

  • Showing notes and context from reporting partners

  • Displaying the latest verification date for each issue

More details here: https://learn.thryv.com/hc/en-us/articles/42745881470477-Keap-REST-v2-API-known-issues-tracker

(From there, you can access the tracker directly.)

If you have concerns that are not represented on the board or additional questions, please post in the Keap API Q&A Forum so we can respond faster and keep everything visible to the community.

8

@Angi_Hast - That Issue Tracker does not mention when any of those issues will be resolved by?

When is the first release coming to address some of those issues?

What happens come March when the first Brownout occurs?

Do Developers tell their Customers / Clients to either wait to see what happens, or do they contact Keap to defer the accounts from the brownouts?

9

+100 for Pav’s comment.

1 Like