Dealing with Exact Online rate limits

From the start

What are rate limits?

Exact Online has become increasingly strict in recent years on making requests to their systems. Their systems are requested through an API (Application Programming Interface). An API is a separate connection that integrations can use to access the data in Exact Online.

The limits set by Exact Online apply to this API. These limits are also referred to as 'rate limits' and indicate how often an integration via that API may make a request to Exact Online on a given day. Exact Online has determined that integrations may make a maximum of 5000 calls per day. When these 5000 have been used, Exact Online will refuse to accept new requests. After midnight, the call count resets back to 5000.

How do we set up our integrations efficiently?

To ensure that our integrations remain below the rate limits, we use 'sync endpoints'. Exact Online has made these endpoints available to make it possible to stay below the limit of 5000 calls. A sync endpoint works on a timestamp basis. A timestamp is calculated by Exact Online at the time of changing data.

Some examples:

• Changing the delivery date of an order
• Update goods delivery with a track-and-trace code
• Finalize invoice
• Update item with a new barcode
• Update address line

A sync endpoint is therefore intended for keeping the data in Exact Online 'in sync' with the integrations. A major advantage of using sync endpoints is that you do not have to request all ordered items from Exact Online for every new order, but that these are already known in the integration. As a result, the integrationdoes not waste unnecessary calls to Exact Online.

In addition to sync endpoints, we have taken the following measures in our integrations:

• Measuring - We keep track of the number of requests from our integration to Exact Online. This way we know how many requests we make and we can anticipate where necessary.
• Optimized timing - In addition to daily rate limits, Exact Online has also set rate limits per minute. At the time of writing this is a maximum of 60 per minute. In order not to let the syncing of data exceed this limit, we sync the data of different objects at different intervals.

What if the rate limits are still exceeded?

Do you have a completely optimized integration, but do you still exceed the rate limits during peak periods? Then we can request an exception from Exact Online with a well-founded analysis. Your integration will then continue to work seamlessly, even during peak periods!