Here's How to Connect to LinkedIn API with CloverDX

A few weeks ago, we published a blog about the interaction between CloverDX and Twitter to kick off our series on CloverDX and social media. In this post, we’ll describe how to connect to another network. Today, we’ll use CloverDX to connect to LinkedIn, a website for networking business professionals.

Register the Application

Connecting to LinkedIn is very similar to connecting to Twitter. First, you need to register the application and get the necessary security credentials.

Go to https://www.linkedin.com/secure/developer, sign in, and use the “Add new application” link.

Fill in the required information about the application (CloverDX in this case), then set the proper permissions to be able to use the API calls you need. See the LinkedIn API documentation for further details about member permissions.

After setting the information about the application, submit the form. The application is now registered, you have the necessary security credentials, and everything is ready for you to use the LinkedIn REST API. Credentials are available in the confirmation screen after registering your API. You can find them later at any time in your application settings (available here).

Using HTTPConnector

Use HTTPConnector to perform requests on LinkedIn in CloverDX. You need only to set the URL of the request and OAuth attributes in the component. Use these values from LinkedIn as attribute values in CloverDX:

API Key as OAuth Consumer key
Secret Key as OAuth Consumer key secret
OAuth User Token as OAuth Access Token
OAuth User Secret as OAuth Access Token secret

Now, HTTPConnector is ready to use LinkedIn API. With these settings, you will get XML as in response to API calls. You can store it into a file or use one of the XML components on it right away.