How to Easily Interact with DigiKey Using APIs

Interacting with DigiKey

When DigiKey was founded over 50 years ago, the only way you could communicate with us was to use the Postal Service or the telephone. In our early decades, we built a database containing all our inventory and pricing and developed software for our employees to use. At the same time, many of our customers started using computers to manage their purchasing tasks but continued to use the mail, phone, and fax to get product information and make purchases. This required manual work for our customers and DigiKey to ensure the transactions were captured in their respective systems.

Over time, we added digikey.com as a new channel, but that required you to manually enter or upload information on our website and then update your system with the result of the transaction.

We also support email orders that can originate from your computer, but our emailed response needs to be manually entered by you into your system.

This century, we built two methods for "machine-to-machine" connectivity for our customers' use. We support EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and API (Application Programming Interfaces) transactions. Both allow you to have your systems initiate transactions that flow to DigiKey for our processing and then feed our response back into that calling system. You only need to interact with your own system! This lowers the risk of keying errors and allows the buyer to focus on the exceptions.

So, what are APIs?

APIs are a type of computer program that one entity implements that allows another entity to use or "call". The caller needs to build or purchase software that can make the connection between the caller's application – such as an ERP (Enterprise Resource Plan) – and the available API. Most API transactions are either a request for information (get pricing and availability) or a request to execute a transaction (place an order). With the correct permissions and instructions, setting up and using the APIs are frequently done without any human interaction by the API provider.

Do I already use APIs at work?

Yes, even if you don't know that you are. 😊

• If you click an "add to Google Calendar" button on a page, that system calls a Google API using your credentials to add it to your calendar.
• If you access a web-based application at work, such as your payroll provider, using "logon with single-sign-on", your company is using that application's APIs to validate your identity and grant access.
• If there's an image of a YouTube video displayed in your company's intranet and you press play, the browser calls a YouTube API to play the video without you needing to leave the page.

Which APIs does DigiKey offer?

Pretty much everything you require as a purchasing professional.

• You can place an order with us.
• Prior to ordering:
  • Search for Product Information
  • Receive Real-Time Price and Availability
  • Lock in Pricing with Quoting
• After ordering:
  • View Order Status
  • Change an unfulfilled Order
  • Identify a Product or an Order using a barcode
  • Identify a Product or an Order using a Tracing ID
• At any time:
  • Integrate with myLists
  • Manage Supply Chain Program

How much more do I need to know about using DigiKey APIs and connecting them to my ERP?

Not much! Your IT department or technology partner is likely familiar with implementing APIs and may already be using them for non-procurement purposes. Developer.digikey.com offers a wealth of information for them to connect to our API gateway and learn how to implement each of our APIs. We have a list of vetted API integration partners who have worked with other customers to start using DigiKey APIs.

Lastly, reach out with any questions! We're happy to help you start on your DigiKey API journey.