If you’re a DFP developer using our API, no doubt you’ve had a question or two at some point during your integration with DFP. You’ve probably visited the DFP API forums, if not posted to them. Today we just wanted to remind you of a few simple things you can do to help us answer your API questions more efficiently.

Let us know who you are

• your network code
• the user ID of the DFP user you’re authenticating as

Send us SOAP logs

Here are some additional tips around SOAP logging.

• When sending us logs, try to send the minimal amount of SOAP logs that clearly show the error or issue that’s occurring. If you send your entire SOAP log for the day, it’ll take longer for us to go through and increase your turnaround time.
• If you’re seeing errors in your production environment and don’t have full SOAP logging enabled due to space constraints, consider logging only request IDs from the SOAP response instead. Not all errors will necessarily have a request ID, but if they do, that ID can help us look up your error.
• If you’re not comfortable posting SOAP logs on the forums, you can either (1) paste a snippet of your code instead, or (2) reply directly to us by using reply privately to author.

Distinguish a product issue from an API specific issue

If you’re still unsure, you can always post your issue in the API forums and we will be glad to help you out.

 - Vincent Tsao, DFP API Team

Today we are releasing v201505 of the DFP API. This release brings changes to the ReportService and new features to the Sales Manager API, including advanced ProposalLineItem actions.

In v201505, the ReportService loses all MERGED_* metrics. These metrics, relics from DART migrations, are being deprecated. For more details, check out our earlier blog post. Additionally, the getReportJob method has been replaced by getReportJobStatus. The report utilities in our client libraries have been updated, but you should verify this in your code as well. Migration is straightforward, as shown in this Java example:

    // v201502 code
    ReportJobStatus status = reportService.getReportJob(reportJobId).getStatus();

    // v201505 code
    ReportJobStatus status = reportService.getReportJobStatus(reportJobId);

Sales Manager users get new ProposalLineItem actions, including ActualizeProposalLineItems and ReleaseProposalLineItems. You can also use BypassProposalWorkflowRules and include a comment when approving workflow requests.

For a full list of these and other changes, check the release notes.

As a reminder, with each new release comes a new deprecation. If you're using v201405 or earlier, it's time to look into upgrading. If you have any questions about upgrading, let us know on the developer forum.

 - Chris Seeley, DFP API Team

Today we are releasing v201502 of the DFP API. This release includes a revamp of the ForecastService, including support for Delivery forecasts. There are also new video features including GRP settings on line items, GRP breakdowns in forecasts, and new VIDEO_VIEWERSHIP report columns.

Sales Manager gains three new services for Packages, ProductPackages, and ProductPackageItems. Additionally, the ProposalLineItemService will now return ProposalLineItems that were created from Packages. There's also improved support for workflow rules with WorkflowValidationErrors.

Finally, Type fields have been removed from all entities. Please update your code to use xsi:type, class names, or instance of.

A detailed list of these and other changes can be found on our release notes page.

Using the new ForecastService

The ForecastService can now run Delivery forecasts for multiple line items. These forecasts report the number of units that will be delivered to each line item given the goals and contentions from other line items in the request. Pass prospective line items or line item IDs to getDeliveryForecast or getDeliveryForecastByIds as outlined in this Java example:

    DeliveryForecast existingLineItemForecast =
       forecastService.runDeliveryForecastByIds(new long[] {123L, 456L});

    ProspectiveLineItem prospectiveLineItem1 = new ProspectiveLineItem();
    prospectiveLineItem.setLineItem(myFirstLineItem);

    ProspectiveLineItem prospectiveLineItem2 = new ProspectiveLineItem();
    prospectiveLineItem.setLineItem(mySecondLineItem);

    DeliveryForecast prospectiveLineItemForecast = 
        forecastforecastService.runDeliveryForecast(new ProspectiveLineItem[] {
        prospectiveLineItem1, prospectiveLineItem2});

The existing getForecast and getForecastById methods have been replaced by getAvailabilityForecast and getAvailabilityForecastById, respectively. You must now include AvalilabilityTargetingOptions to specify whether you want to include contending line items or the new TargetingBreakdown.

    ProspectiveLineItem prospectiveLineItem = new ProspectiveLineItem();
    prospectiveLineItem.setLineItem(myLineItem);
    AvailabilityForecastOptions options = new AvailabilityForecastOptions();
    options.setIncludeContendingLineItems(true);
    options.setIncludeTargetingCriteriaBreakdown(true);
   
    AvailabilityForecast forecast = 
        forecastService.getAvailabilityForecast(prospectiveLineItem, options);

Handling Sales Manager Workflows with the API

Updating a Proposal with workflow rules may cause a WorkflowValidationError. The WorkflowValidationError will include a message defined by the network's administrator. For more information about detecting and handling specific error types, refer to this blog post.

As always, if you have any questions or feedback, reach out to us on our API forums.

 - Chris Seeley, DFP API Team