How-To: Integration Of Your User Validation For App Access

Whenever a user attempts to download a publication in an app, a request is made to Visiolink’s server to check for access to the publication. If an external web service validation has been set up, this web service will be called to check for access. If the user credentials are valid they will be stored in the app for future use. These user credentials could be email/password or a subscription number.

The app expects a yes / no answer (or TRUE/FALSE , YES/NO, 0/1). The preferred response from the external web service is a JSON response, but both XML and plain text are also valid options.

A request to your validation service from Visiolink’s servers, could look like this:

http://example.validation.com/external/device/access.php?email={email}&password={password}&date={date}

For your validation service to be able to answer whether to grant access to the selected publication, it must typically have information to identify the user and the publication trying to be accessed. In the example above we have included the minimum, email, password and publication date.

The request can be made as either a GET or POST request.

In app message

If you want to display a message to the user when e.g. “wrong password“ or “No active subscription” – please include this message in the (JSON) response together with access denied.

Multiple publication titles

If your app includes multiple publication titles - an extra parameter “edition={prefix}” could be included in the request sent from the app to your validation webservice. That way you can control the access to different titles if needed.

HTTP codes: You can only use successful respond codes in HTTP (200 - 299) or validation will fail.