SurveyMonkey API - how does the Mashery account relate to the SurveyMonkey account?

Question

If I have a SurveyMonkey account and a Mashery login, how (in either SurveyMonkey or the Mashery 'developer.surveymonkey.com' site) do I link the two accounts together? i.e. so that the provided API key and token give me access to the correct data?

For instance, if I have an existing Mashery login, can I use that in conjunction with a newly registered SurveyMonkey account? If so, how?

And if I have to set up a brand new Mashery login to work with the new SurveyMonkey account, then where in the Mashery registration process can I specify what my SurveyMonkey account is?

Thanks

Answer 1

The SurveyMonkey API is designed for partners to integrate their website with SurveyMonkey's and allow any of their users to link their SurveyMonkey accounts with the partner's website - i.e. as things work currently, your API key is not meant to be linked with a specific SurveyMonkey account.

Instead you are meant to use OAuth to generate an access token which allows access to a user's account. A request to the SurveyMonkey API needs two identifiers on it to work properly - the api_key in the query string parameters (to validate the caller's access to the API) and the access token included in the header (to designate which account you are accessing). This is detailed here.

If all you want to do is access your own account, you can generate an access token via the API Console. Make sure you select "custom application" and fill in the correct details. If you wish to offer the ability to link any account at any time, you'll need to implement OAuth, and SurveyMonkey offers a guide here.

Answer 2

After a day or two of registering my mashery account, I noticed a link at the top of the screen after I logged into the SurveyMonkey API site with the mashery account: "Link your SurveyMonkey account." I'm not sure if the link was there the whole time and it just took a couple of days for me to notice it, or if it showed up after someone from SurveyMonkey "approved" my mashery account. Anyway, once I clicked the link and gave the credentials for my Survey Monkey account, the two were linked together and I was able to use the Survey Monkey API tool to retrieve data from my SurveyMonkey account. Note, however, that on the API tool you have to give your mashery Client ID (not your Survey Monkey login), in order to pull back the data for your Survey Monkey account.