Comments on: Using the RescueTime Embed and Data API

By: Mark Wolgemuth

Mark Wolgemuth — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:15:12 +0000

Thanks for the feedback!
I’ll change the code to ignore an unedited value.

By: Michael Sallmen

Michael Sallmen — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:53:04 +0000

A tip for the frustrated:
I kept getting getting a 500 or {“error”: null} message until I realized that the server rules for my API key still contained the default ” ip/mask or hostname or domain name ” prompt string. I cleared that out and it worked immediately!

Thanks very much for this API! You might want to think about ignoring or removing the default prompt string for people like me who think leaving a text box alone means it’s not going to affect the outcome.

By: Mark Wolgemuth

Mark Wolgemuth — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:27:12 +0000

Bah, I forgot to add those too. Sorry Greg, I’ll update the docs again. Thanks for your feedback and example!

By: Greg Bray

Greg Bray — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:57:46 +0000

Still had to do a bit of snooping around since the http://www.rescuetime.com/apidoc page is missing information about the format=csv and rtapi_key=…. parameters, but after a few tries I got it to work. If anyone else is curious the following is a sample URL that will return a list of “Date,Time Spent (seconds),Number of People,Activity,Category,Productivity” data in CSV format for Sept 14th using an hour chunk size:

https://www.rescuetime.com/anapi/data/?op=select&vn=0&pv=interval&rk=activity&rs=hour&rb=2009-09-14&rb=2009-09-15&format=csv&rtapi_key=YourKeyHere

Playing around with the various parameters should let you customize the data that gets exported. This is pretty cool! The data drops right into Excel or Access for analysis with Pivot Charts and Tables. Keep up the awesome work!

By: Mark Wolgemuth

Mark Wolgemuth — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:31:57 +0000

Thanks for the feedback! That’s what I get for publishing code without docs!

For reference, the base URL is:

https://www.rescuetime.com/anapi/data

So, I should set reasonable defaults and update the docs per your questions, but right now you would:
1) Create a service object:


svc = Service('https://www.rescuetime.com')
2) Create a AnalyticApiKey object tied to that service:
akey = AnalyticApiKey('THEKEYSTRINGFROMAPISETUPPAGE', svc)
You get the key name / key string from the Setup Data API page.
3) Create as many data requests you want for that key:
d1 = ResponseData(akey, {'operation': 'select', 'perspective': 'rank', 'restrict_kind': 'overview', etc... add more params }

d2 = ResponseData(akey, {'operation': 'select', 'perspective': 'interval', 'resolution_time': 'hour', 'restrict_kind': 'activity', etc... add more params }
4) Call sync to get data
d1.sync()

d2.sync()
The returned data is in: d1.object and d2.object

Hope that helps!

By: Greg Bray

Greg Bray — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:50:19 +0000

I’d love to be able to pull the data into Excel or Resolver One for analysis, but after taking a quick look I can’t figure out how to use the raw HTTP Query Interface. The api documents lists some of the parameters, but there is no reference to the actual URL that you use to access the data. Any chance you could provide a sample of the full URL used to get category data for a given date range in csv format?

I tried reading the Python wrapper code, but it doesn’t contain a url either (seems to reference “localhost:3000″ as the servername. I tried snooping around the url used for embedding charts, but I couldn’t figure it out. my guess is something like:

https://www.rescuetime.com/anapi/?op=select…..

but that returns a 404. Also I’m not sure where to insert the api key. Is it a parameter or part of the url path? If it is a parameter, what name should we use? Also guidance as to which parameters are optional and which are required would be helpful.

Sounds awesome though! Keep up the great work!