Generate a personal access token in Optimizely

  • Updated

Table of Contents

Relevant Products:

  • Optimizely Web
  • Optimizely Performance Edge
  • Optimizely Full Stack
    • Legacy projects created prior to February 2021
    • v2.0 (Flags)
This topic describes how to generate a personal access token for yourself or another user in Optimizely.

Optimizely's REST API lets you create and manage Optimizely projects and experiments and analyze results from other applications.

For example, our partners and technology partners use the REST API to:

  • Create Optimizely audiences based on information collected from your Data Management Platform

  • Manage Optimizely projects from an internal system

  • Pull results data into an internal dashboard or results widget

  • Send email alerts when certain results are achieved

To use the Optimizely REST API, you will need to authenticate by generating an API token.

Administrators can generate and revoke personal tokens for all other users in their account. Here are a few more details about personal tokens, by Optimizely collaborator role: 

Administrators

  • Generate personal tokens for any collaborator in the Optimizely account they administer

  • Revoke personal tokens generated for any collaborators in their account, at any time

  • View a list of all active tokens in an account 

Editors, Project Owners, and Viewers

  • Generate personal tokens for themselves

  • Revoke their own personal tokens, at any time

  • View the active tokens that they have generated for themselves

This topic shows how to generate or delete a token in Optimizely. Because tokens are account based, the instructions are the same for Web, Performance Edge, and Full Stack projects.

You can also learn more about token-based authentication in Optimizely in our developer documentation.

For ​​applications built on the REST API (such as technology integrations), you can alternatively use OAuth to access Optimizely data.

Generate a token

To generate a personal token in Optimizely:

  1. Go to Profile > API Access. and click Generate New Token.
    generate-token-web.png

  2. Enter a token name and click Create.
    generate-new-token.png

  3. If you are an administrator, you can create tokens for other collaborators on the account. Use the dropdown menu to select a collaborator. If you are not an administrator for the account, you can only generate a personal token for yourself.

  4. Copy the token.
    copy-to-clipboard-new-token.png

For security purposes, when you navigate away from the API Access tab, the token will no longer be visible when you return. If you need a token, generate a new one.

Keep your tokens secret; treat them like passwords! If you need a new one, revoke or delete the token and generate another.

Revoke a token

Revoking a token permanently removes it, so you can no longer use it to connect to the Optimizely API. If you are an administrator, you can revoke any personal token attached to the account. If you are not an administrator for the account, you can only revoke the tokens that you generate for yourself.

To delete a token:

  1. Go to Profile > API Access.

  2. Under Personal Access Tokens, click Revoke.
    revoke-token.png

  3. Click Delete Token to confirm. You cannot undo this action.
    conform-delete-token.png