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Getting Started

Create an account and API keys

To use any of our APIs you must request a developer account or create one by visiting our Sign-In page. A developer account provides a username/password combination with which you can log in to create API keys for granting access to applications on your behalf.

After your account has been created, you will receive an invitation email including a one-time password to activate your account.

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PREREQUISITES TO ACCESS DATA

In order to access data via the APIs you will need a valid API key. While the API key is bound to your user account and provides general access to our APIs, it does not permit access to individual ships' data or other information out of the box.

In order to obtain access to the data of a specific ship you must contact the Hoppe Support at datasolutions@hoppe-marine.com, prove your identity and request access to the data. Please describe your use case, list the email address with which you are registered and list the IMO numbers of the vessels you were granted access to by the data owner. The Hoppe Support will contact the data owner to verify the legitimacy of your request. Afterwards your user account will be granted access to the specific data.

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Authenticating via user-bound session tokens, the previous method for accessing our APIs, will remain an option. However, users are encouraged to migrate their API access calls to application-specific API keys.

Creation of API keys

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Please always treat each API key as secret and do not share it with any unauthorized persons. An API key allows access to some of your most valuable assets: your data.

After your user account has been created, you can log in here to manage your API keys. Your user detail page will list all the ships that you have access to, in addition to all the permissions which your account has been granted:

User Detail Page

The "API Key Management" section provides a simple interface for creating and invalidating API keys. A list of all your API keys can be accessed there, which will be empty on first visit. A new API key can be generated with the "Add New API Key" button.

Add API Key

We suggest following the practice of giving your API keys meaningful descriptions in order to easily identify API keys with different purposes later on.

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You will only be able to see the API key once, immediately after it has been generated. Once that window has been closed, you will not be able to access the API key's value again. Please make sure to safely store the API key after creation.

Added API Key

A valid API key must be provided in the Authorization header as Authorization: ApiKey <API KEY VALUE> for each API request. Please refer to our blog post on best practices regarding the handling of API keys.

Testing the APIs

We know that figuring out how to use APIs can be hard. Use the “Try it out!” feature to get examples of the request and response formats of our APIs. This makes an API call to the backend service using your API key and provides a sample curl request with all necessary input parameters and the real response.

Typically, each API has a usage limit set for each user account. The usage plans are flexible enough that most users should not hit any limits. In case you do hit a Limit exceeded error on any of the APIs please reach out to datasolutions@hoppe-marine.com in order to define a custom usage plan.

First steps with the Ships API

The Hoppe Marine Ships API, described in great detail here, provides customers worldwide 24/7 access to their data assets. With focus on strong security and state-of-the-art technology, data is provided via an easy-to-use and intuitive interface. This interface follows industry standards allowing for easy access by the customer itself or any third partner which is delegated the permission by the customer to access the data on its behalf. In order to guarantee connection integrity and security all traffic is TLS encrypted. This encryption is enforced server side. Unencrypted connections are denied access.

For language specific examples of how you can use the APIs, see our extensive documentation in the Language Specific Guides section.

Support

The Hoppe Marine Data Solutions Team is keen to assist you with the development of your custom-made solution to bring your data analysis capabilities to the next level.
You can reach us at moc.eniram-eppoh@snoitulosatad.