Request Authorization

In order to perform actions on behalf of a user, they must first authorize you to do so.

When requesting authorization from a user, the domain is app.cronofy.com and not api.cronofy.com that you make the API calls to.

Authorization is received by performing the “Authorization Code” version of authorization as specified in section 4.1 of RFC 6749.

This will issue you a short-lived, single-use code that you will be able to exchange for an access_token and refresh_token for the user.

Example request URL #

The parameters are encoded in the querystring as specified in appendix B of RFC 6749. Additional linebreaks are added to the request’s path for clarity.

https://app.cronofy.com/oauth/authorize
    ?response_type=code
    &client_id={CLIENT_ID}
    &redirect_uri={REDIRECT_URI}
    &scope={SCOPE}
    &state={STATE}

Request URL parameters #

response_type required #

Must always be code as that is the only grant type supported by Cronofy.

client_id required #

The client_id issued to you by Cronofy to authenticate your OAuth Client. Authenticates you as a trusted client.

redirect_uri required #

The HTTP or HTTPS URI you wish the user’s authorization request decision to be redirected to.

In development this can be any value, but in production this has to be a pre-registered value. This helps us guard against phishing attacks by controlling where we return authorization codes to for your application.

We can only support wildcards in the host name for subdomains of domains under your control, eg:
https://*.example.com/auth/cronofy/callback

Otherwise, the URL must be static and we can support multiple values.

If your URL is dynamic, you should utilize the state parameter to pass variables. See our FAQ on using this to support dynamic values in your OAuth flow.

scope required #

The scope of the privileges you want the eventual access_token to grant. At least one of the following scopes must be requested:

create_calendar to allow Create Calendar requests
read_events to allow Read Events requests
- Note that if you only want to read the events you are managing, you do not need this scope so long as you pass a only_managed parameter of true to Read Events and Create Notification Channel requests.
create_event to allow Create or Update Event requests
delete_event to allow Delete Event requests
read_free_busy to allow Free-busy requests
- Note that the read_events scope implicitly includes this scope as it allows access to a higher level of information than free-busy so you do not have to request both.
change_participation_status to allow the Participation Status of a user in an event to be set

Simplified scopes are also supported to as an alternative to accommodate common use-cases. These scopes have a simplified description for the end user and are equivalent to requesting multiple standard scopes as detailed below.

Please note that Simplified scopes cannot be used together with standard scopes, if this is required then the equivalent standard scopes should be used.

read_only to allow Read Events and Free-busy requests. This scope is equivalent to read_events and read_free_busy scopes.
write_only to allow Create Calendar, Create or Update Events and Delete Event requests. This scope is equivalent to create_calendar, create_event, and delete_event scopes.
read_write to allow all requests mentioned in read_only scope and write_only.
free_busy to allow Free-busy requests. This scope is equivalent to read_free_busy scope.
free_busy_write to allow all requests mentioned in free_busy scope and write_only. This scope is equivalent to create_calendar, create_event, delete_event, and read_free_busy scopes.

The format of this value is specified in section 3.3 of RFC 6749 but is a space-separated String of named scopes, eg. read_events create_event delete_event.

The scopes chosen will impact what users see on the initial Cronofy screens of the OAuth flow, but we still need to ask for full privileges from the calendar provider to support all aspects of the API. Unfortunately the integration options available to us don’t allow for us to reduce the scopes we request from users’ calendar accounts.

state optional #

A value that will be returned to you unaltered along with the user’s authorization request decision.

The OAuth 2.0 RFC recommends using this to prevent cross-site request forgery.

avoid_linking optional #

A Boolean value that when true means we will avoid linking calendar accounts together under one set of credentials.

If not provided, defaults to false.

By default, requesting authorization ties the calendars linked by the same browser to one account. This allows you as the developer to be able to access all of the users calendars through one set of API credentials.

However, your users may sometimes use a shared computer and so you may not want the calendar accounts to be tied together. This is the kind of situation in which you would want to specify this parameter as true and we will then create a set of credentials for each calendar linked.

locale optional #

A String value for the locale to use for display purposes. If not provided we will use the locale provided by their browser. In general you will not want to supply this and instead rely on the user’s browser to provide the correct locale.

Currently supported locales are:

ar Arabic
cs Czech
cy Welsh
de German
en US English (default)
es Spanish
fr French
fr-CA Canadian French
he Hebrew
it Italian
ja Japanese
nl Dutch
pl Polish
pt-BR Brazilian Portuguese
ru Russian
sv Swedish
tr Turkish
zh-CN Simplified Chinese

provider_name optional #

A String value indicating a calendar service provider to pre-select for the user.

Currently supported options are:

apple Apple iCloud
exchange Microsoft Exchange
google Google Workspace and personal Google
live_connect Outlook.com, includes Hotmail and Live
office365 Office 365

Response URL parameters #

You will not receive a direct response to your Authorization Request, instead the user will be redirected to the REDIRECT_URI with additional querystring parameters specified.

The responses are fully specified in section 4.1.2 of RFC 6749.

Successful response #

code #

A short-lived, single-use code to be used to make an Access Token Request.

Will always be 32 character String of ASCII characters.

state #

The value you passed for the state within the authorization request.

Error response #

error #

A single ASCII error code. The complete list is within section 4.1.2.1 of RFC 6749, these are the most commonly encountered:

access_denied the user declined your request
unsupported_response_type your request’s response_type was not code
invalid_scope no valid scopes were specified in your request’s scope