This release introduces the third major release of our Stack Overflow for Teams API which extends API v2 capabilities with new and improved functionality, design, and documentation. A popular request with our customers, v3 provides more flexibility for Subject Matter Expert (SME), User Group, and Private Team management.
Offering a more accessible and flexible toolset for developers, v3 allows users to work with familiar builds alongside the ability to build solutions that go beyond our out-of-the-box integrations to meet specific organizational needs. It also helps streamline SME and User Group management.
What’s new in the Stack Overflow for Teams API v3?
Extended functionality
Both the Stack Overflow for Teams API versions 2.3 and 3.0 allow users to go beyond out-of-the-box integrations and meet specific organizational needs. New in API v3, integration developers can manage SMEs, User Groups, and Private Teams. API v3 extends functionality to:
*The Private Teams feature is available only on the Stack Overflow for Teams Enterprise plan.
Modern design
The structure of v3 reflects modern API design patterns familiar to developers, making it easy to understand and implement.
Improved documentation
API v3 uses Swagger UI, an industry standard API visualization tool that makes it easy for users to understand and interact with the API without testing calls. Swagger UI is disabled by default in Stack Overflow for Teams. To enable it, Teams admins can go to Admin Settings> API (under Integrations and Apps) and scroll to the bottom of the service key page where you can toggle Swagger UI to On. When you first enable Swagger UI, Teams creates a persistent access key for it.
Stack Overflow for Teams API use cases
Stack Overflow customers continue to create innovative and custom use cases for the API to extend and enrich their Teams. Some ways customers can use the API include:
Bulk updates and group management
Make bulk updates and manage User Groups and SMEs.
User Groups make it easier to reference a list of users by a group name rather than referencing individual users. This helps users find knowledge faster when they know the team or department who may know the answer to a question but not the specific names of the users. Adding User Groups support to API v3 helps Teams administrators streamline the user management process and allow for tighter integration with IdPs and user management systems to create an even more comprehensive user management automation. API v3 supports retrieving, creating, modifying, and deleting User Groups in Stack Overflow for Teams.
Subject Matter Experts are key to getting the right people to answer questions. SMEs are associated with tags and are notified when questions are asked using those tags. Like User Groups, adding SME support to API v3 can help streamline SME management and will allow for more up-to-date and accurate SME assignment through integrations with user management systems. API v3 supports retrieving, associating, and removing SMEs from tags.
Enterprise plan: Report on Private Teams activity
Enterprise teams can now report on activity in their Private Teams that is not shown in the Teams Dashboard view.
We introduced Private Teams on Stack Overflow for Teams Enterprise as a way to intentionally create knowledge silos within Teams for content that is sensitive, like HR, Finance, or IP-related content. Private Teams segment content from the main Stack Overflow for Teams instance completely and use their own local tags. By adding Private Teams support to API v3, Private Teams can have the same integration capabilities as the main Stack Overflow for Teams instance, including reporting on Private Teams activity, so you can keep a pulse on trending content and top contributors.
Measure cross-silo collaboration with data enrichment
Connect data from Stack Overflow for Teams with organizational data (i.e., from HR systems) to map knowledge flows across the organization and enrich your overall data.
To understand how to best support its teams, Progressive Insurance used the Stack Overflow for Teams API to visualize how knowledge was flowing (or not flowing) between teams and to reveal deeper insights into trending topics, questions, and concerns.
Try it for yourself: Learn how to measure cross-silo collaboration with API v3.
Custom integrations
Create custom integrations like the Stack Overflow for Backstage plug-in. To improve long onboarding times and overall developer happiness, Spotify created an internal developer portal to be the central nervous system for all of their software, tooling, and documentation.
Tip: learn more about how Spotify created their own developer portal then open sourced it as Backstage.io for everyone to benefit.
Identify organizational traits, hotspots, and trends
Harvest metadata and gain insights into how your organization is operating and what they’re most interested in, and identify areas leadership could support to help drive your strategy for improving adoption and knowledge sharing across the organization. Here are some examples of what these insights can help uncover:
- What are the most viewed questions and answers that were created during a certain time frame?
- What are the trending topics and tags during a particular time frame?
- What domains and/or technologies are trending or declining?
- Who are the top contributors within different domains of expertise?
- What parts of the organization are most (or least) active in the product?
Stack Overflow for Teams API is available for read/write access for Business and Enterprise plans and read access for Basic plans.