Is there a SugarCRM API (to create login accounts)

[sugartek]

Does SugarCRM have a Java API to create a login account (login account that would then be accessible through the web interface)?

What I want to do is programatically provision a login account (and later an employee account
(maybe without login access) and other things). I could do this, through JDBC put things directly in the database,
but this would take some time to figure out, and I would be rewriting everything the web interface
does now.

I want to be able to do all things you can do from the web interface
or an admin tool but by sending an XML message to a web service
or use a SugarCRM API for which I can write my own web service to do this.

In other words I do not want to go through the web interface
as a human to create the login account (as in a web interface
login account).

We have a central system where we provision users out to
the applications they need to access and are just now adding
SugarCRM to the mix.

I want to pass all the info to the SugarCRM API (including the password)
and have everything go where it needs to go.

For this to work the SugarCRM API would need to take the plain text
password and encrypt it just like it would if created from the web interface.

Any help or pointers in helping me to accomplish this would be super
greatly appreciated.

If you have need of doing the same, I am willing to share my code and
my work.

Ultimately we want to be able to programatically through an API manage the
full lifecycle of various SugarCRM data (provision / update / delete user accounts
move people to other departments, create departments groups, manage access attributes etc).

[labanjohnson]

have you looked at the code? I don't see why this can't be done, SugarCRM is fully object oriented - one of the better PHP applications I've seen

[sugartek]

Thanks for your reply. I have not looked at the code. The idea is that I don't want to look at the code. I don't want to write an API to SugarCRM for integration. Ideally I am looking for a provided API that we can use to integrate the product or it would really be cheaper to go with a commercial solution that has an API.

If I have to write an API, I would then have to duplicate or replicate all business rules in the entire code base and stay on top of that with each new release. An application (in our organization) has no value if it can not be easily integrated with other applications. No application is an island but they are developed like that as if it will be the only app in an organization.

[kuske]

Such a common API would also be a very good entry point for hack attacks I think.

I would not like such an API on my machine.
But as labanjohnson said it is very simple to write such an API if you just look on a few source files.

[gunni]

How about the SOAP API?

[sugartek]

Thanks for (most) of the responses. Apparently there is not an API and the customer needs this integrated with other applications in the enterprise. I have given them a price tag of $35K (and three months) to write a SugarCRM API (Java Web Services) and with it include (replicate) all the business rules embedded in the web app. In addition there would be the cost of making updates when SugarCRM adds / deletes a business rule or changes the underlying schema.

At this point I also recommended that they go with another CRM solution (commercial) that comes with integration libraries (from the commercial CRM company) at a cost of $16K, so they save quite a bit paying for something that comes with integration libraries (via Java Web Services) out of the box.

I can't imagine anyone using any product without having some sort of integration facility that is packaged with it (aka an API to programatically provision/update/manage the underlying data).

Writing and maintaining integration libraries for SugarCRM would be cost prohibitive at this point.