[#1494] Request for Static API Key Authentication to Reduce API Overhead in Custom Provider-Selection Logic

API General
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Migrated from Redmine #1494 | Author: Abdul Wahab
Status: Feedback | Priority: Immediate, there is BUG! | Created: 2025-11-19

I am developing a custom SimpleBook.me calendar widget that requires determining the best provider for a specific service and date. Since SimpleBook.me does not natively support round-robin provider selection, I currently call getProviders and then run individual API requests for each provider to check availability for the selected date. This results in a large number of sequential API calls, making the calendar extremely slow.

Because every REST API call requires full authentication—even for basic GET requests—the repeated authentication process adds significant overhead.
To improve performance and reduce the number of authentication cycles, I would like to know whether SimpleBook.me supports using a static API key for read-only/GET operations.

A static key would allow me to run these necessary provider-availability checks more efficiently without violating rate limits or API rules.
Could you please confirm whether this is supported or suggest an alternative method to optimize this workflow?

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Redmine Admin wrote:

hi, you don’t need to go trough the whole auth process each time. Please reuse API access token you already got

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Abdul Wahab wrote:

I am already doing that

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Redmine Admin wrote:

then not sure what is the problem as you need to get a new token once per 30 minutes?

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Abdul Wahab wrote:

The main issue is with the round-robin setup and the very short session duration for authentication. I am using the REST version, and even if I use a refresh token, I still need to call the API, which I want to avoid due to rate limit.

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Abdul Wahab wrote:

The main issue is with the round-robin setup and the very short session duration for authentication. I am using the REST version, and even if I use a refresh token, I still need to call the API, which I want to avoid due to rate limit.
For round robin what is the solution i am interested on that

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Abdul Wahab wrote:

Abdul Wahab wrote in #note-6:

The main issue is with the round-robin setup and the very short session duration for authentication. I am using the REST version, and even if I use a refresh token, I still need to call the API, which I want to avoid due to rate limit.
For round robin what is the solution i am interested on that

Here is my calendar

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Abdul Wahab wrote:

I want to avoid making too many API calls just to find the right availability combination. Currently, I call getProviders and then run individual API requests for each provider to check availability on the selected date. This results in a large number of sequential API calls, which makes the calendar extremely slow.

I need a simple solution to optimize this on the API side. If that’s not possible, I want to know the best approach I can take on the client side to prevent the calendar from slowing down.

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Val Komarov wrote:

As I see, the closest to your request is API documentation | SimplyBook.me Online Scheduling - with this method you can get availability for several service providers at once.

In any case, you don’t have to call the full authentication every time, you should reuse the token achieved once, and then use the refresh token only when the main one is outdated

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Abdul Wahab wrote:

I’ll test this endpoint: getCartesianStartTimeMatrix
. If it works, that’s great. Regarding the token manager, I’ve implemented a similar approach to cache and reuse tokens efficiently.