The API

This is the API for web development; the Android and iOS apps will use a different API. This API consists of several resources, which each represent a different table in the database. These resources are accessed through actions, which are similar to methods, but are accessed through a URL. This URL is of the form website/resource/action.php, where website is the name of our website, resource is the resource being used (e.g. tickets), and action is the action name. In order to use these actions, there are a few things you must understand.

First, each action has one of two return types: HTML or JSON. HTML actions return a new webpage, and are accessed by either giving the user a link to click, or setting the action attribute of a form to the action's URL. No JavaScript is needed to use HTML actions. JSON Actions return a JSON string, and are a little more complicated. The must be accessed through a Javascript function, which uses an XMLHttpRequest object to retrieve the string. This string must then be parsed into a Javascript object (Javascript provides functions that do this automatically) and the data in that object will be used to update the current page.

Secondly, each action has a request type; at least for now, the only request types used are GET and POST. GET is used when you are retrieving data from the server, while POST is used for actions that modify the database. To create a request for an HTML action that uses a form, you simply set the method attribute of the form to either "get" or "post". For a JSON action, you set the XMLHttpRequest to use GET or POST. To create a GET request for an HTML action that uses a regular link, you append the parameters to the end of the URL, in the following format: "?param1=value&param2=anotherValue". You cannot create POST requests from a regular link for HTML actions.

In the tables below are the descriptions of actions, sorted by resource. For now, ignore the access level.

Tickets

Action Name	Description	Request Type	Parameters	Output Type	Access Level
create	Creates a new support ticket.	POST	description	HTML	all
list	Lists all tickets a user has created, or is in charge of (for consultants and managers).	GET	NA	HTML	all
view	Views the details of a specific ticket.	GET	ticketID	HTML	all
change_status	Changes the status of a ticket (e.g. is completed).	POST	ticketID, newstatus	JSON	consultant or above.
assign_consultant	Assigns a consultant to the ticket.	POST	ticketID, consultantID	JSON	manager or above.
delete	Deletes a ticket.	POST	ticketID	JSON	admin

Messages

Action Name	Description	Request Type	Parameters	Output Type	Access Level
list	Lists all messages associated with a certain ticket.	GET	ticketID	HTML	all
view	Views the details of a specific message.	GET	messageID	HTML	all
send	Sends a new message to the people associated with a ticket.	POST	ticketID, message	JSON	all

Users

Action Name	Description	Request Type	Parameters	Output Type	Access Level
list	Returns a list of users.	GET	NA	HTML	consultant or above.
view	Views the details of a specific user.	GET	messageID	HTML	all
set_position	Changes the position of the user.	POST	userID, message	JSON	admin