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Sync profile data with your system data in the API

After a profile is created, it’s best practice to make sure the data in your systems and the data in Passfort match. If profile data changes in Passfort, you should update your system data. Likewise, if your system data about a profile changes, you should send the updates to Passfort.

A profile's documents, for example, a driver's license or passport, are stored in collected data.

If you've updated the data used for the profile's due diligence checks, you may wish to run these checks again.

Update your system data when Passfort's profile data changes

Use the collected data update or collected data changed webhooks to receive a notification any time a profile’s collected_data changes in Passfort.

The webhook payload contains a copy of the new data and the old data so you can see what's changed.

Use the payload to compare the information contained in data.new_data with the information in your system, and update your system if required.

Update Passfort's profile data when your system data changes

To update a profile, send a request to get its collected_data, then post the collected_data back to the profile with any amendments.

Get the existing collected data

Make a request to the following endpoint:

Request endpoint:

GET https://api.passfort.com/4.0/profiles/{profile_id}/collected_data

The response returns everything that currently exists in the profile’s collected_data. Copy the entire response body. You’ll need this for the next step.

The response also returns a header called Etag. Copy the value, for example, W/"1579973191.798", so you can return it in Send the modified data.

It’s important to copy the entire response body because when you post back, you must send everything you want to keep in collected_data. It’s not possible to update specific fields.

Modify the data

Take the response you copied in the first step. You can make these changes:

  • Add or remove any of the optional fields.

  • Modify the values for any of the optional or required fields.

All required and optional keys for collected_data are listed in the Create a profile API reference.

Passfort does not have any character limitations for profile data unless otherwise specified in the API reference. However, your data provider may specify their own limitations for the data when it's used to run checks. Contact your data provider to find out more.

Send the modified data

Pass the updated data back using the following request endpoint.

In the header of the request, include a parameter called If-Match with the value of the ETag you obtained in Get the existing collected data.

For example If-Match: W/"1579973191.798"

Request endpoint:

POST https://api.passfort.com/4.0/profiles/{profile_id}/collected_data

The profile is updated and the response returns everything that currently exists in the profile’s collected_data after the updates. Confirm it matches what you sent.

The response also includes the new ETag in a header parameter called Etag.

Note that if the ETag doesn't match, the response returns a 412 Precondition Failed status and the response body contains the latest profile data, without the changes from your request. Get the latest ETag from the 412 response and try the POST request again.

When you update a profile's collected_data by sending the preceding request, the Collected data updated/changed webhook sends a payload to say that a profile's data has been updated. If you’re using the Collected data updated webhook, make sure you only act on the payload when it shows that the data returned does not match the data in your systems. Otherwise, you may end up with an endless loop where your system updates Passfort, receives a notification from the Collected data updated webhook, and tries to act on data it has just sent.

One way to distinguish between whether the collected_data was updated by the user or via the portal is to look at the payload from the collected data updated or collected data changed event. If the user parameter is an object, a user updated the profile. If the value is null, the profile was updated via the API. Some additional keys may be added to the profile's collected_data automatically, for example, original_structured_address.

Additional information