Last month, we announced a new set of resources to administer Cisco Spark. Thanks to the new administration REST API , you can now not only add Users to an Organization, but also modify Users’ Roles or check Licenses. One obvious point is that you need to be a Spark Administrator to use the new API. Simply reach to your Organization Administrator to be added to the “empowered” Spark users list. Currently evaluating Cisco Spark? It is worth mentioning that you can ask for an official evaluation via Cisco Spark Plus (note that the online buying experience is limited to United States for now). The Spark Account email provided in the form below will get instantly promoted as an “Administrator” of the Organization that just got created. Now, let’s experience your new Administration API super-powers. Log out and sign in again at Spark for Developers portal. As you reconnected, a new Developer Access Token got issued, with Cisco Spark APIs administrator privileges. Access the Organization interactive documentation, and list your organizations details. What’s next ? You’ll certainly want to start writing scripts to audit your Cisco Spark Organization or automatically provision / de-provision users. Well, when it turns to custom code writing, nothing beats the Code Generation feature of Postman.. except a full-feature Cisco Spark API client, but at the time of this article, none of the existing community client SDKs support the new Administration API … yet. Good news! the DevNet Sparkers just updated the Cisco Spark Postman Collections project on github: check the Administration Collection. Fully scripted, the collection lets you invoke the new  Administration resources incrementally, generate code in a language of your choice, and browse the dynamically generated documentation. You’re now a click away to importing the admin collection into Postman, and starting to code your new awesome CiscoSpark administration scripts. Happy hacking! - Stève Sfartz, API Evangelist ... View more

What is the Cisco Spark Community of Interest? This is where you can start your journey as a “DevNet Sparker”. browse others creations, hopefully find inspiration for a bot of yours, or simply extend a code sample to bootstrap your own app. or learn to create bots and integrations by taking the “Cisco Spark Learning Track”. And, once your Cisco Spark App is finalized, submit it to the Cisco Spark Depot, so that it gets global visibility and encounters the success it deserves. What is a “Sparker”? A developer with a passion for Cisco Spark Apps, who can think of nothing but creating integrations and bots in order to automate Enterprise Processes or Things (car, heaters, WIFI, …). As you are reading this, it is probably you! What are Cisco Spark Apps? Cisco Spark Apps concretize Cisco Spark’s extensibility. By adding Cisco Spark Integrations via the “Depot”, users can tailor their Cisco Spark experience for themselves, their teams or their entire organization. For example, the “Jira integration” will spark your teams of any issues updates (whether EPIC, Story, Task or Bugs). By creating custom Cisco Spark Bots, developers can tie together existing enterprise processes or any existing back-end to Cisco Spark. For example, the “Room Finder” bot helps colleagues quickly find an available meeting room by polling your internal Enterprise Exchange Servers. Are there different types of Cisco Spark Apps? Yes, Cisco Spark Apps can be either Integrations or Bots. What is the difference between a Bot and an Integration? Integrations let your application request permissions to invoke the Cisco Spark APIs on behalf of Cisco Spark end-users. The process to request permission is called the OAuth Grant Flow, and is documented in the Integrations documentation. Bots differ from integrations in that they appear in rooms with their own identity; their Cisco Spark email ends with sparkbot.io. Creating a bot is documented in the Bots documentation. How can I learn to create my own Cisco Spark Bots and Integrations? What are you waiting for? Take the “ Cisco Spark Learning Track ”. Seriously, we’ve put together several modules to ramp you up with building and running your own bots and integrations. What if I don’t do NodeJS, but rather code in Python, PHP, Ruby or …? The “ Cisco Spark Learning Track ” and the "DevNet Creations" are great places to start from. " DevNet Creations " showcases community projects in all languages. Then, check the “ Cisco Spark Learning Track ” , several of its learning labs are language neutral. For those that are language specific, the community is working on providing examples in more languages... and good news, you’re now part of it. Feel like contributing? Pick a code sample, translate it to your favorite language, and tweet us @CiscoDevNet. If you’re looking still looking for more language-specificresources, check the “ awesome-ciscospark ” project on Github. And if you know of a valuable resource not listed on the repo, we'd love you to contribute via a pull request! Hope you find your answers, and let's now meet in the Cisco Spark community... ... View more

Cisco Spark APIs comes with a great companion — its interactive documentation - that lets you quickly experiment with the API. If you have not tested it yet, take a minute to create a room.. and don’t miss the “Test Mode" toggle button where magic happens when you switch it on! https://developer.ciscospark.com/endpoint-rooms-post.html This documentation may fall short when it comes to code generation or if you need to experiment with more advanced features such as pagination. This is where a REST client tool such as Postman that can help. We’re happy to announce the postman-ciscospark is now available on Github. The project contains a Postman collection that let you generate code for any Cisco Spark API resources: pick a resource and get a code snippet for the language of your choice. Nodejs code snippet to list Spark Rooms Now you’re just a few clicks away from this new superpower: import and configure the collection to try it for yourself! Note that this collection leverages the scripting capability of Postman, so that you can run queries with no need to copy-paste identifiers as you create new resources. Not a Postman user yet? The REST tool comes with a free basic plan! Simply download a Chrome or Desktop version. If you have personal collections that prove to be handy over time, please feel free to add your contribution. - Steve Sfartz ... View more

On June 15-17 took place the Web2day conference , one among the most prestigious tech event in France outside of Paris (dixit the “ Startups Guide France ” Page 297 ) : for 3 days, 3200 visitors joined the 2016 edition, learned and shared experiences with 250 speakers, in Nantes, home of the Elephant machine. the elePH(P)ant machine, with a (P) for some of its PHP fans Paris Innovation Center teams up with Startups Part of its ambitious program to accelerate France Country Digitalisation, Cisco’s Paris Innovation Center sponsored the Web2day Startups Challenge, and hosted 20 startups over the 3 days, at the Cisco DevNet booth. We spread the word about Cisco APIs in a 40' talk , demonstrated real-world uses cases with CMX — Cisco Mobility Services , CiscoSpark and Tropo . We also mentored a 2-hours hands-on session focused on CiscoSpark & Tropo APIs. the Cisco DevNet booth in the Web2Day village An interactive assistant for the Tech2Day To illustrate some of Cisco Tropo APIs features, we showcased an IVR — Interactive Voice Response — which helped Web2Day participants navigate among the talks and hands-on program. Note that the Tech2Day is the technical track for developers inside the Web2Day global event. The Tech2Day IVR featured : a Tropo phone number speaks the next sessions (happening right now, at the exact moment you’re calling the number), proposes you to subscribe to some sessions via the dial tone #1, sends a SMS with details for the session you selected, as you respond to the SMS with your email address, the IVR adds you to a Spark Room with other Tech2Day participants, in this Spark Room, a bot listens and answers the /tech2Day command with a list of upcoming sessions. What’s the secret sauce ? The Tech2Day IVR scenario is fully powered by the Tropo Scripting API, a Tropo phone number with bidirectional SMS support, plus a bit of nodejs code built with SailsJS and hosted on the nodejs-friendly CleverCloud platform . Please find hereafter are a few link if you want to dive into the code right now (and before we publish a more detailled  article to walk you through the entire code): the Cisco Spark bot :https://github.com/ObjectIsAdvantag/tech2day2016-bot the Tech2Day API with Spark on-boarding via SMS in there, the Javascript IVR built on the Tropo Scripting platform (warning there are french native words in there :-)) If you want to discover more about Cisco APIs, Spark, Tropo, CMX …, we would be happy to meet, discuss and/or go hands-on during one of these upcoming events : Paris Viva Technology on June 30th to July 1st, Smart Open Lisboa Hackathon on July 1st and 2nd , right after the DevNet CMX Workshop in Lisbon on June 30th , Cisco Live Vegas Hackathon July 9th, 10th , and Cisco Live Conference July 11th to 14th . What is DevNet ? Cisco Developer Program — DevNet — gathers resources for Developers to innovate with Cisco APIs : learn, get inspired, share, and join communities… https://developer.cisco.com ... View more

This last month, hundreds of you took the opportunity to meet with DevNet — Cisco’s Developer Program : Paris SmartCity Hackathon April1st-3rd - with BeMyApp & at NUMA TADHack mini London April 9,10th, with @TADHack DevNet Express Lisbon May 11th, right after the Cisco Innovation Day Lisbon DevNet @TAG Roma & Milan May 5th,12th , with Talent Garden Missed those ? Well, we are working on a new set of events for June/July. I suggest you bookmark DevNet’s past and future events list, and start following @CiscoDevNet . Whether you want to discover, learn or put your hands on Cisco APIs, you are always welcome at DevNet events. Worth mentionning our events are free, and all Cisco APIs can be freely accessed for development via DevNet Learning labs & Sandboxes. What are Cisco APIs about ? should I care ? Well, I may be biased ;-) but pretty much innovation is happening here at Cisco, and a lot of developers are currently jumping into the train. If you care about Cloud, IoT, DevOps, Collaboration … Cisco Spark & Tropo Cloud Collaboration services … or Network Integration & Automation, it is certainly time to get your head up. DevNet Developer Centers gather more than 80 API documentations. Cisco DNA : Full powered / robust APIs to integrate with or automate your network Where should I start ? Let’s make it easy. API Resources and Code samples : signup at DevNet and get free access more than 80 APIs documentation plus Learning Labs & Sandboxes. Cisco Spark interactive API documentation : explore and run API queries (create rooms, send messages…), or go for your own bot. Tropo documentation : login and experiment Tropo Phone Calls & SMS via interactive use cases (2 factor auth, web site call back…), then go for your own scripts. Networking development center : get a broad overview about Cisco networks programmability and DNA — Cisco’s Digital Networking Architecture. What is DevNet ? Cisco Developer Program — DevNet — gathers resources for Developers to innovate with Cisco APIs : learn, get inspired, share, and join communities… https://developer.cisco.com ... View more

On May 5th in Rome and May 12th in Milan, a total of 100 participants joined a free DevNet training, focused on Cisco Spark and Tropo APIs. Worth mentioning the UNIQUE location. Please meet Talent Garden : with 16 creative / innovation / startup / community locations in Europe, this is definitely the place where you want to stop by for an afternoon or a day. By the way, Cisco Italy opted to have a permanent cube inside the Milan co-working space. Pass by, you’ll always be welcome here. Did I mention  Anna - Women in Tech Italy is a resident ! TAG — TalentGarden Milan The late afternoon agenda was about DevNet ressources and a broad overview of applications you can deliver thanks to Cisco Spark & Tropo APIs. Spark & Tropo APIs : extend Cisco Collaboration Cloud Great interactions with a technical audiences of mix software developers, network engineers and Power Users. We showcased how to build your own integration in a snatch with IFTTT, Zapier and Built.io services. Built.io flow : send an SMS straight from Cisco Spark via Tropo & Spark APIs Check out the full Deck and start builing your own integrations. Time to party ! We followed up with business opportunities and technical talks. Watch out for these guys as they may come with true innovation in your neighbourhood ;-) next gen Cloud Collaboration enthousiasts in Milan What is DevNet ? Cisco Developer Program — DevNet — gathers resources for Developers to innovate with Cisco APIs : learn, get inspired, share, and join communities… https://developer.cisco.com ... View more