For dummies - Does anyone know a tutorial on using the API explorer to configure URLs?

[Lisa_Singh01]

I know I'm an idiot so forgive the stupidity of this post.

Does anyone know a tutorial on using the API explorer to configure URLs? I've spent the day trying it out and I can't work out from the description how to enter the data in a the way it wants me to.

For example I thought I'd try out the "Monitored entities - Custom Tags" get request configurator. I've tagged a number of synthetic browser monitors with Chrome.

And you can add one or several of the following criteria:

• Tag: tag("value"). Tags in [context]key:value, key:value, and value formats are detected and parsed automatically. If a value-only tag has a colon (:) in it, you must escape the colon with a backslash(\). Otherwise, the tag will be parsed as a key:value tag. All tag values are case-sensitive.
  
  
  Okay so I've tried Tag:"Chrome" and Tag:Chrome and Tag:tag("Chrome") and just about every other permutation I can think of.
  
  I don't understand this thing API explorer thing at all and I've been trying for two days and I'm in tears now.
  
  I tend to learn by seeing examples and reverse engineering the constructive principles rather than viewing the constructors and trying to work out what I'm meant to do. I really wish they had "recipes" or code snippets or something to help idiot beginners like myself.
  
  I can't even manage to post a question properly without getting an error about using the wrong form or whatever (this is the 4th time I'm trying now)

[Yosi_Neuman · Accepted solution]

Hi @Lisa S.

error:

You need to add to the tag also a type of entity for example:

And then you will get response:

However ,IMO there is no SYNTHETIC entity type hence you should use Synthetic API v1

with the tag you need

and get your output just fine.

Hope that will help you to smile a bit.

BTW If you are going to use REST API consider to use Sergio's Rest Api GitHub great PostMan collections.

All the best an stay safe and happy

Yos

[Lisa_Singh01]

Thank you @Yos N. I might just go with the api v.1. I liked that v.2 let you use human readable and relative dates rather than UTC timestamps but maybe v.1 is the way to go. Hmmm...

[Yosi_Neuman]

Hi @Lisa S.

Good news for you : you can use the v2 with tag("test"),type("SYNTHETIC_TEST")

Which mean bad news for me as my IMO was not right 🙂

All the Best

Yos