Affinity

Introduction

Welcome to Affinity API v2! This API provides a RESTful interface for building internal apps, automated workflows, and other integrations on top of the core data models in Affinity, and for connecting Affinity to the rest of your tech and data stack.

Please note that this new version of the API is not at feature parity with Affinity API v1. We will add to this new version to cover more of v1's functionality over time. This API version is also only available on select Affinity license types. See this Help Center article or contact your Customer Success Manager for more information.

Getting Started

All Affinity API endpoints use the base URL https://api.affinity.co. All v2 endpoint paths start with /v2. Requests must be sent over HTTPS.

Using These Docs

The first few sections of these docs cover general information on the API. Each subsequent section covers a set of API endpoints.

Each endpoint is documented with its accepted request parameters, expected response shapes, and a sample request and response. Please note that the shape of a given response can vary depending on what "type" of object or data is being returned. When this is the case, the response documentation will include a dropdown that can be used to select the "type" for which to display the response shape.

Authentication

Affinity API v2 uses API keys and bearer authentication (this is an important difference from Affinity API v1's use of basic authentication).

To generate an API key, navigate to the Settings page in the Affinity web app. You will need the "Generate an API key" role-based permission controlled by your Affinity admin to be able to do this. See this Help Center article for full instructions on API key generation, and this article for more information on role-based permissions in Affinity.

Currently, we support one API key per user in your Affinity account. Your API key is able to read data and perform actions in Affinity on your behalf, so keep it safe as you would a password.

Provide your API key as your bearer authentication token to start making calls to Affinity API v2.

Permissions

Overall requirements

You must have the "Generate an API key" permission to be able to work with the Affinity API. Most users in most Affinity accounts with API access have this by default — Contact your Affinity admin if you are not able to generate an API key, and see this article for more information on role-based permissions in Affinity.

Resource-level permissions

The Affinity API respects sharing permissions that are set in-product. For example, if a given user does not have access to a list, note, or interaction in-product, they will not be able to see or modify it via API.

Endpoint-level permissions

Many API endpoints also require endpoint-specific permissions that map to permissions in-product. These permissions, along with the "Generate an API key" permission, are managed by your Affinity admin in the Settings page:

Rate Limits

The Affinity API sets a limit on the number of calls that a user can make per minute, and that all the users on an account can make per month. It also sets a reasonable limit on the number of concurrent requests it will support from an account at one time.

Requests to both Affinity API versions will count toward the one pool of requests allowed for a user or account. Once a per-minute, monthly, or concurrent rate limit is hit, subsequent requests will return an error code of 429. We highly recommend designing your application to handle 429 errors.

Per-Minute Limits (User-Level)

To help protect our systems, API requests will be halted at 900 per user, per minute. We may also lower this limit on a temporary basis to manage API availability.

Concurrent Request Limits (Account-Level)

To protect our systems and manage availability across customers, we set a reasonable limit on concurrent requests at the account level. Customers should not expect to hit this limit unless they are hitting the API with heavy operations from many concurrent threads at once.

Monthly Plan Tier Limits (Account-Level)

The overall number of requests you can make per month will depend on your account's plan tier. This monthly account-level limit resets at the end of each calendar month. Current rate limits by plan tier are:

*Per-Minute and Concurrent Request Limits still apply.

Rate Limit Headers

All API calls will return the following response headers with information about per-minute and monthly limits:

Pagination

When an endpoint is expected to return multiple results, we break the results up into pages to make them easier to handle. To cycle forward through multiple pages of data, look for the nextUrl property in the pagination portion of an API response, and use it for your next request. See endpoint documentation for more information.

Error Codes

Here is a list of the error codes this API will generally return if something goes wrong (see endpoint documentation for endpoint-specific error information):

Data Model

The Basics

• The three top-level objects in Affinity are Persons, Companies, and Opportunities. (Please note: Companies are called Organizations in the Affinity web app.) These have profiles in the Affinity web app and can be added to Lists.
• A lot of the work of Affinity happens within Lists. A List is a spreadsheet-like collection of rows tied to Persons, Companies, or Opportunities.
• Each row on a List is a List Entry. A List Entry contains data and metadata about a given Person, Company, or Opportunity in the context of a List. This includes list-specific field data, and information about who added the row to the List and when.
  • Do note that a given entity can be added to a List more than once, i.e., it can have multiple List Entries on the same List. These List Entries can have different list-specific field data and List Entry-level metadata.
• Each column on a List maps to a Field. Fields and field data also show up within Affinity profile pages, extensions, and integrations.
  • Some Fields are scoped to a single List — These are list-specific fields, and in the API, their data can only be accessed through the List Entry resource. "Global" data from other Fields can be accessed both through the Person/Company/Opportunity resource and the List Entry resource.

Working with Field Data

Field Types and IDs

There are a few types of Fields in Affinity, differentiated by the scope and source of their data:

Field Value Types

Field data can take a variety of shapes. These value types are described in the Affinity Help Center here. Here is a list of the same value types, as represented in this API. Notice how array types end with -multi:

*Please note that filterable-text and filterable-text-multi are special types that operate similarly to dropdown and dropdown-multi. They are reserved for Affinity-populated Fields, and users cannot create Fields with these types.

When an array-typed value has no data in it, the API will return null (rather than an empty array).

Retrieving Field Data

To retrieve field data on companies, persons, or opportunities, call GET /v2/companies, GET /v2/persons, or one of our GET */list-entries endpoints. (Note that Opportunities only have list-specific Fields, so all their field data will live on the */list-entries endpoints.) For most of these endpoints, you will need to specify the Fields for which you want data returned via the fieldIds or fieldTypes parameter — Otherwise, entities will be returned without any field data attached.

The GET /v2/companies and /v2/persons endpoints can return entities with enriched, global, and relationship intelligence field data attached, but do not support list-specific field data. To get comprehensive field data including list-specific field data on Companies and Persons, use the GET */list-entries endpoints.

Specifying Desired Fields (Field Selection)

As mentioned above, you will need to specify the Fields (either by ID or by Type) for which you want data returned when using the following endpoints:

• GET /v2/companies
• GET /v2/companies/{id}
• GET /v2/persons
• GET /v2/persons/{id}
• GET /v2/lists/{listId}/list-entries

Each of these endpoints has a fieldIds parameter that accepts an array of Field IDs, and a fieldTypes parameter that accepts an array of Field Types. Use the GET */fields endpoints to get Field IDs, Field Types, and other Field-level metadata:

• Call GET /v2/companies/fields and /v2/persons/fields to get a list of the enriched, global, and relationship intelligence (AKA non-list-specific) Fields that exist on Companies and Persons, respectively. These are the Fields whose values are available to pull via GET /v2/companies, GET /v2/companies/{id}, GET /v2/persons, and /v2/persons/{id}.

• Call GET /v2/lists/{listId}/fields to get a list of the enriched, global, relationship intelligence, and list-specific Fields for a given List. These are the Fields whose values are available to pull via GET /v2/lists/{listId}/list-entries.

The following endpoints don't require field selection:

• GET /v2/lists/{listId}/saved-views/{viewId}/list-entries — See below. This endpoint returns just the field data that has been pulled into the given Saved View via UI.
• GET /v2/companies/{id}/list-entries and GET /v2/persons/{id}/list-entries — These endpoints return comprehensive field data for the given person or company in the context of each List Entry.

Saved Views

A Saved View allows a user to configure the Fields they want to see in the UI for a given List, and set filters and sorts on the rows on that List. A List can have multiple Saved Views. In the context of this API, Saved Views can be useful for specifying the exact Fields for which data is needed. The */saved-views/{viewId}/list-entries endpoint also respects the filters that have been set on the given Saved View in the Affinity web app. (It does not, however, respect sorts just yet.)

Partner Data Restrictions

This API supports pulling data from Affinity Data fields and select Dealroom fields. Due the agreements we have with some of our data partners, the API does not expose data from the following sources:

• Crunchbase, including Crunchbase UUID
• Pitchbook
• Dealroom "exclusive" fields

A Note on Nested Associations

Some GET endpoints return "association" data under fields. For example, the Persons GET endpoints return data about which Companies a Person is associated with in Affinity. The Opportunities GET endpoints return similar data about associated Companies and Persons. The List Entries GET endpoints also return this data for Person and Opportunity List Entries.

The API truncates these nested arrays of Persons or Companies at 100 entries. For example, if an Opportunity is associated with 200 Persons in Affinity, only 100 of those Persons will be returned by the GET /opportunities or /opportunities/{id} endpoint.

User Guides

A Tour of Our GET Endpoints

Tip: The ID for a List, Saved View, Person, Company, or Opportunity can always be found in its Affinity web app URL.

Changelog

March 25, 2024

• Added the ability to retrieve the date and other details of your firm's "First Email", "Last Email", "First Event", "Last Event", "Next Event", "First Chat Message", "Last Chat Message", and "Last Contact" with a given entity. Use these timestamps to add relationship context to your applications, and to identify founders and companies that need investors' attention.
• Endpoints that previously required a fieldIds parameter to return field data, now accept either fieldIds or fieldTypes, and will return field data accordingly. See the Specifying Desired Fields (Field Selection) section of these docs for more information. The new fieldTypes parameter should make field data retrieval easier for users looking to pull data from many similar Fields at a time.

January 4, 2023

• Most endpoints that return field data now require the user to use the fieldIds parameter to specify which Fields they want data for. Without fieldIds specified, these endpoints will return basic entity data but not field data.

December 12, 2023

• Added the ability to retrieve metadata (e.g. ID, name, type, enrichment source, and data type) on Fields. See the Retrieving Field Metadata section of these docs for more information.

Operations