Fetch data from Epicollect5 API using R

epicollect5-api-example.r

library(httr)
library(jsonlite) # if needing json format

cID<-"999"      # client ID
secret<- "F00HaHa00G" # client secret
proj.slug<- "YourProjectSlug" # project slug
form.ref<- "YourFormRef" # form reference
branch.ref<- "YourFromRef+BranchExtension" # branch reference

res <- POST("https://five.epicollect.net/api/oauth/token",
            body = list(grant_type = "client_credentials",
                        client_id = cID,
                        client_secret = secret))
http_status(res)
token <- content(res)$access_token

# url.form<- paste("https://five.epicollect.net/api/export/entries/", proj.slug, "?map_index=0&form_ref=", form.ref, "&format=json", sep= "") ## if using json
url.form<- paste("https://five.epicollect.net/api/export/entries/", proj.slug, "?map_index=0&form_ref=", form.ref, "&format=csv&headers=true", sep= "")

res1<- GET(url.form, add_headers("Authorization" = paste("Bearer", token)))
http_status(res1)
# ct1<- fromJSON(rawToChar(content(res1))) ## if using json
ct1<- read.csv(res1$url)
str(ct1)

# url.branch<- paste("https://five.epicollect.net/api/export/entries/", proj.slug, "?map_index=0&branch_ref=", branch.ref, "&format=json&per_page=1000", sep= "") ## if using json; pushing max number of records from default 50 to 1000
url.branch<- paste("https://five.epicollect.net/api/export/entries/", proj.slug, "?map_index=0&branch_ref=", branch.ref, "&format=csv&headers=true", sep= "")

res2<- GET(url.branch, add_headers("Authorization" = paste("Bearer", token)))
http_status(res2)
ct2<- read.csv(res2$url)
# ct2<- fromJSON(rawToChar(content(res2))) ## if using json
str(ct2)

@jaymwin

@schafnoir answer is correct.

If you have only one form, the form ref parameter is not even needed, as it will default to the first form anyway.

thanks @schafnoir and @mirko77 - using those parameters and removing form.ref here did the trick:

url.form<- paste("https://five.epicollect.net/api/export/entries/", proj.slug, "?map_index=0&form_ref=", "&format=csv&headers=true", sep= "")

hey,

I am trying to set up an automated transfer of pics to my drive using AWS. Some days back it was working fine and it seems like it broke in the meantime. The problem is that it is not downloading original files but just the file that is named the same but has only 77B of information for each file. Any ideas? I have used the same code as presented above.

Tried it again:

The code:

for( pic in pics){
  imageURL <- paste0("https://five.epicollect.net/api/export/media/", proj.slug, "?type=photo&format=entry_original&name=", pic)
  httr::GET(
    imageURL,
    add_headers("Authorization" = paste("Bearer", token)),
    write_disk(
      path = here("dta/img/", pic),
      overwrite = TRUE)
  )

  ## Upload on Google drive
  # googledrive::drive_upload(media = here("dta/img/", pic),
  #                           path = folder_id$id
  #                           )
  ## Remove from local folder
  # file.remove(here("dta/img/", pic)) 
  Sys.sleep(2)
}

Example image URL is:
"https://five.epicollect.net/api/export/media/soyscout?type=photo&format=entry_original&name=7149429a-3eb3-4999-b106-d836090e6b59_1652127690.jpg"

@mladencucak

We have no experience of AWS we afraid.

It looks like your requests get capped at 78b, so they are either wrong or you are over a quota (30 requests per minute for media files on our API =>https://developers.epicollect.net/#rate-limiting). You might want to catch any network errors as well. The 78b might be the error response, which you are saving as an image regardless of its content.

Is the access token valid? They expire every 2 hours. https://developers.epicollect.net/api-authentication/retrieve-token

You could try the Javascript example here, probably easier to debug things -> https://developers.epicollect.net/examples/getting-media

There is a fiddle to play with as well https://jsfiddle.net/mirko77/y45brprq/

Apologies for the delay- it was an error message. I would imagine it was happening because of too many calls when I was developing this as it disappeared once I left it all for a day or two and added time breaks between API calls. Thank you!

Great, I am glad the issue is solved!

That is interesting. I used exactly the code from above. The Jason one works fine. But the CSV one works fine until the ct1<- read.csv(res1$url).

@jimer666 I am facing the same issue you had, I am able to get the entries in the JSON format but the csv does not work. Were you able to resolve this issue?
Thank you

This line gives the error
ct1<- read.csv(res1$url)

Error in file(file, "rt") : cannot open the connection