Now Available: Account-Level API Accounts
We are thrilled to announce that our new GraphQL Users API includes setting and managing account-level API accounts. Some BigCommerce applications require permissions to interact with your store. These permissions come in the form of API accounts that you can create from your control panel!
There are two types of API accounts you can generate in your control panel:
- Store-Level API Accounts — API credentials that correspond with one store
- Account-Level API Accounts — API credentials that function in all stores associated with your BigCommerce account
Why Would I Want Account-Level API Accounts?
Currently, there are two main use cases for Account-level API tokens:
Use Case #1: Users API
The Users API addresses a need for large enterprise merchants to have an automated user onboarding and offboarding flow. Users API allows merchants to provision and de-provision users and list all users for compliance reporting purposes.
Use Case #2: Automated Billing (still in beta)
Automated Billing, which is still in beta and only available to a closed group of partners right now, addresses the need for new partners to bill for app subscriptions through BigCommerce rather than being required to have their own billing and payments set up.
In the future, we expect more APIs to be using this to, for example, manage domains and SSLs.
How Do I Generate Account-Level API Accounts?
1. Go to Settings › Account API Tokens and click “Create API Token”.
2. Enter a name for the app or integration corresponding to the API token. The API path for account-level API accounts will be https://api.bigcommerce.com/accounts/{account_uuid}/graphql.
3. Under OAuth Scopes, specify the API resources and permissions required. You can select more than one option per resource. Note: Users who are not enrolled in Automated Billing (beta) will not see the first section of the scopes about charges.
The following OAuth scopes can be specified in account-level API accounts:
- Subscriptions — View or cancel subscriptions to your store’s marketing and abandoned cart emails
- Checkouts — View or create storefront checkouts
- Charges — Create or delete charges using the Payments API
- Users — Create, edit, and delete BigCommerce control panel users using the GraphQL Users API
4. When you’re done making changes, click Save. If your credentials save successfully, you’ll see a pop-up (like below) containing the API credentials that your app will need for OAuth access. You will be prompted to download a .txt file containing these credentials. Keep them safe!
And that’s it! You’ve got an account-level API account set up. Congratulations!
I’m interested! What’s next?
To learn more about our APIs and Account-level API accounts, please check out our documentation!
If you still have questions, comment on this article, tweet at us, or send our DevRel team an email!
