Mailout #12: The Coviu API has arrived

3 min readApr 11, 2017

We’ve developed Coviu as an amazing user experience for video consultations aiming at “better than being there”.

As part of this, we also want other applications to be able to take advantage of the excellent interaction and collaboration tools that we’re making available within the Coviu rooms. So it was only natural for us to implement an API for Coviu.

As it turns out, we actually made two APIs: one that allows other applications to link with users of our Coviu team product, and one that allows other applications to create Coviu rooms anonymously under their control (also called a “Platform as a Service”, though we just like to think of it as plug-and-play video appointments).

In fact, both types of API are based around the idea of appointment bookings and the Coviu rooms are created with one or more provider URLs and one or more guest URLs. How you use the URL is up to your application.

For universal pluggability, we made SDKs available for iOS, Android, and several backend programming languages including PHP, Java and Node.js. C# is in the works. On the backend, you create the URLs, on the frontend, you use the URLs in your application. For example, in a Web application, you could use an iFrame to integrate a Coviu room.

We also created a lot of functionality in the API accounts that would help programmers move through the setup process, e.g. a checklist for registering the API key and creating your first appointment booking, and even a Wordpress example application.

So finally, today, we announced our API to the world.

Subject: “Coviu: Release of Sessions API”

Date sent: 11th April 2017

Hi user,

Coviu has taken the next step in flexibility: our API has arrived. You can now sign up for a developer account with Coviu.

What is the Coviu API?

API stands for application programming interface. It allows developers to use the Coviu video calling interface in other applications. In practice, this means you can now include your own customised video calling functionality in your own website or application using the Coviu API.

How does it work?

Let’s say you run a health advice service — you can now allow your practitioners to link to your own branded video calling room from right within a patient booking made in your existing booking system. Or maybe you have a patient portal where bookings are listed — with the Coviu API your patients can join a call directly from the portal with a custom button. These are some of the many ways the Coviu API helps to simplify and enhance the patient experience.

Here’s an example of the Coviu video calling API in a Website: