SIF Open API

1 Overview
2 Locale data model Open APIs
- 2.1 Australia
- 2.2 New Zealand
- 2.3 North America
- 2.4 UK
3 Advanced SIF APIs
4 SIF Data Model Specification
5 Open API Versions
- 5.1 Open API 2.0 (formerly known as Swagger API)
- 5.2 Open API 3.0.3
- 5.3 Open API 3.1

Overview

SIF is a REST API and has an Open API (formerly known as Swagger API) definition published. As with the SIF data model the Open API definitions are published separately for each locale. Further Open API has several versions, each with its distinct feature set and limitations. This page not only lists where the SIF Open API definitions for each locale can be found but it also advises what SIF Open API version should be used to achieve the best result for the task at hand.

Locale data model Open APIs

This section lists all available SIF Open API definitions specific to a local such as North America (NA), New Zealand (NZ) and Australia (AU).

Australia

Australia publishes several sets of Open API definitions based around use-cases as well as a full data model Open API.

Open API for the full Australian data model (will load slowly due to the size of the API)
Open API for Student Baseline Profile (SBP) data model
Open API for Attendance data model
Open API for Finance data model

New Zealand

Open API for Te Rito.

North America

North America publishes a set of Open API definitions. The list of available Open APIs

List of available Open APIs for NA

UK

The United Kingdom doesn’t currently publish an Open API definition for its locale.

Advanced SIF APIs

The Open API referenced in this section is the non-locale specific SIF APIs (formerly know as Infrastructure APIs) that enable advanced functionality for SIF implementations.

Advanced SIF Open API (formerly known as Infrastructure API).

SIF Data Model Specification

Each locale has as SIF Data Model specification published. Details can be found on the SIF Data Model Specifications page.

Open API Versions

The A4L publishes two version of the SIF Open APIs definition (artifacts). There are a few reasons why a specific version of the SIF Open API is published. These are listed in the section related to each published version below.

Open API 2.0 (formerly known as Swagger API)

A4L does not support Open API 2.0. No artifacts for this version are published.

Open API 3.0.3

This version of Open API supports less features and options than newer versions. For example it only supports JSON as a format for API payloads and only JSON can be provided as examples. The SIF Open API artifacts for this version will only list and support PESC JSON as examples and validation. It is suggested to use this version of the SIF Open API with many 3rd party tools that produce any type of artifacts based on an Open API definition, as it can be assumed that these SIF Open API artifacts will not only validate but also produce valid output for 3rd party tools that consume Open API artifacts.

Open API 3.1

This Open API version is relatively new (as of April 2023). It supports a richer set of features than previous version. However, 3rd party tools are still in the process of upgrading to support these new features and many of them do not currently support these new features. This may cause some 3rd party tools to break but there is a likelihood that this situation will improve as time goes on. One key feature that is supported in Open API 3.1.x is the inclusion of XML as example payloads. Since SIF originates around the XML standard there is a considerable number of XML based implementations. Due to this fact A4L not only publishes the artifacts for the SIF Open API definition for Open API 3.1 but the online documentation for the SIF Open API is published in this version as well, to enable the XML support for payload examples.