OAuth2 Integration

The Bazaarvoice Privacy API provides a secure HTTP interface for integrating Bazaarvoice into your privacy regulations compliance workflow. To learn more, go to the Privacy API home page.

This tutorial explains how to use OAuth2 with the Bazaarvoice Privacy API.

Introduction

Bazaarvoice has implemented 3-legged OAuth2, an open standard for access delegation. This style of OAuth is referred to as “3-legged” because it consists of three roles:

• The Client Application
  This is an application that would like to access data or interact with a Bazaarvoice service on behalf of a user.
• The OAuth2 API
  A Bazaarvoice service that implements the OAuth2 standard and intermediates between the User and Client Application.
• The User
  This is the person who is using the Client Application. They can grant or deny the Client Application access to their data.

3-legged OAuth2 offers several advantages including:

• The User’s credentials are never exposed to the Client Application.
• The Client Application can be used by an arbitrary number of users.
• As a well-known open standard, OAuth2 is easier to implement than a custom solution.

Continue reading to learn how to use OAuth2 to access the supported Bazaarvoice APIs.

OAuth2 components

The following table summarizes several components that will be used when implementing OAuth2.

API fundamentals

Security

All requests to the OAuth2 API must use HTTPS.

https://api.bazaarvoice.com/auth/...

Environments

The OAuth2 API supports the following environments:

API passkeys

Each request to the OAuth2 API must be accompanied with a staging or production passkey corresponding to the environment used.

The OAuth2 API will always be used in a conjunction with the Privacy API, so as a convenience the passkeys for each will be the same. In other words, your Privacy API staging passkey will also work as your OAuth2 API staging passkey and your production Privacy API passkey will also work as your OAuth production API key.

Walkthrough

This section describes the recommended 3-legged OAuth2 workflow, which requires a user log in to the Bazaarvoice Portal to authenticate a Privacy API application. If you need to automate your application, read this walkthrough and then refer to the Automation design pattern section to learn which steps can be automated.

The Bazaarvoice OAuth2 integration can be divided into the following three actions:

• Authorization
  • Description: The Client Application initiates a process in which the User can grant or deny access to the Client Application by logging in to the Bazaarvoice Portal through their browser. If access is granted, the Client Application will receive an Authorization Code from Bazaarvoice.
  • When to perform: When you don’t have a valid Access Token or valid Refresh Token.
• Token exchange
  • Description: Client Application submits the Authorization Code to Bazaarvoice. If it is valid, Bazaarvoice will return an Access Token that the Client Application can use when making requests to a Bazaarvoice Service on behalf of the User.
  • When to perform: When you don’t have a valid Access Token or valid Refresh Token, but do have a valid Authorization Code
• Token refresh
  • Description: When an Access Token is expired, or nearing expiration, a Client Application can request a new Access Token by submitting the Refresh Token to the OAuth2 API.
  • When to perform: When you have a valid Refresh Token and the Access Token is expired or will expire very soon.

Each action is described in more detail below.

Authorization

Step 1: Request login page

To begin the authorization process, the Client Application should make a request to the OAuth2 API as depicted below. If you are testing this step during development, you can perform this step in a browser to automatically be redirected to the login page in the next step without having to extract the redirect location.

Request

GET https://[stg.]api.bazaarvoice.com/auth/v1/oauth2/auth?client_id={CLIENT_ID}&redirect_uri={REDIRECT_URI}&passkey={PASSKEY}

Assuming the client_id, passkey and redirect_uri are valid, the API will respond with a 303 redirect with a Location header that passes along query strings from API request.

Response

HTTP/1.1 303 See Other
Connection    keep-alive
Content-Length    0
Location    https://portal.bazaarvoice.com/oauth2?client_id={CLIENT_ID}&redirect_uri={REDIRECT_URI}&client_name={CLIENT_DISPLAY_NAME}
...

Ellipsis (…) indicate that some headers have been omitted.

https://portal.bazaarvoice.com/oauth2 is not a part of the public facing Bazaarvoice OAuth2 API. Client Applications should not make requests to it directly.

Step 2: Access page

Next, the application must redirect the User’s browser to the URL identified in the Location header of the previous response:

Request

GET https://portal.bazaarvoice.com/oauth2?client_id={CLIENT_ID}&redirect_uri={REDIRECT_URI}&client_name={CLIENT_DISPLAY_NAME}

https://portal.bazaarvoice.com/oauth2 is not a part of the public facing Bazaarvoice OAuth2 API. Client Applications should not make requests to it directly.

Response

The user will see the Bazaarvoice Portal access screen in their browser.

The User will be presented with the option to grant the Client Application access on behalf of the User.

Step 3: Back to the Client Application

If the User grants access to the Client Application by logging in, then the Bazaarvoice Portal will redirect the user's browser to the URL identified in the redirect_uri parameter, sending the User back to the Client Application along with an Authorization Code.

Request

GET {REDIRECT_URI}?code={AUTHORIZATION_CODE}

Response

The User will be redirected to your application's redirect URI. The Client Application should extract the Authorization Code from the URL to request an Access Token within 60 seconds, as described in the next step, or the Authorization Code will expire. If Token exchange is successful, then the Client Application should respond with the appropriate application state. If Token exchange is unsuccessful, then consider loading an error page that invites the User to re-attempt giving access.

Next

Now that the Client Application has a valid Authorization Code it can perform the Token exchange.

Token exchange

Step 1: Requesting an Access Token with an Authorization Code

The Client Application should perform a token exchange when it receives a request to the Redirect URI that includes the code parameter.

The token exchange is accomplished by submitting the Authorization Code, along with several other values, to the OAuth2 API, as depicted below:

Request

POST https://[stg.]api.bazaarvoice.com/auth/v1/oauth2/token?passkey={API_PASSKEY}
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
…

code={AUTHORIZATION_CODE}&grant_type=authorization_code&client_id={CLIENT_ID}&redirect_uri={REDIRECT_URI}&client_secret={CLIENT_SECRET}

Ellipsis (…) in the example above indicate your application may generate other headers.

If successful, the OAuth2 API will respond with the following Access Token data:

Response

{
  "access_token": "{ACCESS_TOKEN}",
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "expires_at": {TIME_STAMP},
  "scope": "offline_access",
  "refresh_token": "{REFRESH_TOKEN}"
}

The Access Token can now be used to authenticate requests to other Bazaarvoice services.

Step 2: Persist the token data

The relationship between the token response object and the corresponding User should be persisted in the User’s browser session, for example with a cookie, so that it can be used for subsequent requests for the same user.

The Client Application should also store the entire token response object. Exactly how this is accomplished is up to the Client Application developer.

Next

Now the Client Application can use the Access Token to make secure requests to Bazaarvoice on behalf of the User. Before each request, verify that the Access Token is still valid and will not expire in the near future. If the Access Token is expired or will expire soon, then perform the Token refresh described below to get a new Access Token.

Token refresh

Step 1: Requesting an Access Token with a Refresh Token

To request a new Access Token, the Client Application should submit a Refresh Token to the OAuth2 API. If the Refresh Token is valid, then the OAuth2 API will respond with new Access Token data.

The following request demonstrates how to request new Access Token data:

Request

POST https://[stg.]api.bazaarvoice.com/auth/v1/oauth2/token?passkey={API_PASSKEY}
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
…

refresh_token={REFRESH_TOKEN}&grant_type=refresh_token&client_id={CLIENT_ID}&redirect_uri={REDIRECT_URI}&client_secret={CLIENT_SECRET}

Ellipsis (…) in the example above indicate your application may generate other headers.

Response

If successful, the OAuth2 API will respond with the following token response object:

Response

{
  "access_token": "{ACCESS_TOKEN}",
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "expires_at": {TIME_STAMP},
  "scope": "offline_access",
  "refresh_token": "{REFRESH_TOKEN}"
}

The Access Token can now be used to authenticate requests with the Bazaarvoice Privacy API.

Step 2: Persist the token data

The relationship between the token response object and the corresponding User should be persisted in the User’s browser session, for example with a cookie, so that it can be used for subsequent requests for the same user.

The Client Application should also store the entire token response object. Exactly how this is accomplished is up to the Client Application developer.

Next

Now the Client Application can use the Access Token to make secure requests to Bazaarvoice on behalf of the User. Before each request, verify that the Access Token is still valid and will not expire in the near future. If the Access Token is expired or will expire soon, then perform the Token refresh described above to get a new Access Token.

Automation design pattern

1. Request the Bazaarvoice Portal login page in a browser, as detailed in the first step of the Authorization section.
2. Enter the credentials of the Bazaarvoice Portal user associated with your application. If successful, you are sent to the redirect URI that you specified for your application and receive an authorization code as a query string parameter.

3. Extract the authorization code from the query string and use it to request an access token and refresh token pair. The authorization code is valid for 60 seconds.
4. Use the access token to make requests to the Privacy API. The access token is valid for 60 minutes.
5. If your access token has expired or will expire soon, use the refresh token to request a new access token. The refresh token is valid for seven days, which means that as long as your application refreshes your tokens at least once per week, it will not require you to repeat the manual authorization process.

Resources

Refer to these resources for more information on OAuth2:

1. OAuth.net
2. OAuth Bible on GitHub