Data structure of the XING User Profile resource

XING aims to be a platform for business professionals, offering a platform through which supply meets demand. They seem to be quite good at it. Take a moment to review the services they’re offering and judge for yourself. I think of them mainly as an European competitor to LinkedIn® and they have an API too, which is in beta testing right now. Just request a beta account and you may get an invitation.

I’ve developed LiPS, a WordPress™ plugin which downloads your LinkedIn® profile data and I’m adding XING as an alternative professional network. The detail of the API documentation is not at the level of LinkedIn yet, but they have a working API and I got my profile data out of it using the oauth-php module.

This API, like the LinkedIn® API, has different resources, each of which can be accessed through an URI. Some of these appear to accept a filter, but both the URI and the filters are not fully documented yet. You’ll learn there’s an filter option when you review the Quick Start Guide. I was unable to find a description of the User Profile resource, so I decided to post my results in this blog.

The API call https://api.xing.com/v1/users/me will return a structure like the one below, represented in JSON format. This resource is protected and you’ll need an OAuth Access Token.

{
   "users":[
      {
         "instant_messaging_accounts":[
         ],
         "haves":"",
         "professional_experience":{
            "awards":[

            ],
            "primary_company":{
               "url":"",
               "company_size":"1",
               "title":"Software Engineer",
               "end_date":null,
               "name":"ten Berge ICT",
               "career_level":"PROFESSIONAL_EXPERIENCED",
               "industry":"INFORMATION_TECHNOLOGY_AND_SERVICES",
               "description":"",
               "tag":"TENBERGEICT",
               "begin_date":"2012-01"
            },
            "non_primary_companies":[
               {
                  "url":null,
                  "company_size":null,
                  "title":"System Engineer",
                  "end_date":null,
                  "name":"",
                  "career_level":"PROFESSIONAL_EXPERIENCED",
                  "industry":"CIVIL_SERVICE",
                  "description":"",
                  "tag":"",
                  "begin_date":"2010-08"
               }
            ]
         },
         "badges":[

         ],
         "last_name":"ten Berge",
         "wants":,
         "educational_background":{
            "qualifications":[
               "Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA)",
               "Prince II Foundation",
               "nCipher Certified System Engineer",
               "Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management"
            ],
            "schools":[
               {
                  "subject":"Hogere Informatica",
                  "end_date":"2009-05",
                  "name":"Christelijke Hogeschool Windesheim",
                  "degree":"B\/ICT",
                  "notes":null,
                  "begin_date":"2005-08"
               }
            ]
         },
         "time_zone":{
            "name":"Europe\/Amsterdam",
            "utc_offset":2
         },
         "active_email":"",
         "organisation_member":null,
         "first_name":"Bas",
         "photo_urls":{
            "large":"https:\/\/m1.xing.com\/img\/n\/nobody_m.140x185.jpg",
            "medium_thumb":"https:\/\/m1.xing.com\/img\/n\/nobody_m.57x75.jpg",
            "thumb":"https:\/\/m1.xing.com\/img\/n\/nobody_m.30x40.jpg",
            "mini_thumb":"https:\/\/m1.xing.com\/img\/n\/nobody_m.18x24.jpg",
            "maxi_thumb":"https:\/\/m1.xing.com\/img\/n\/nobody_m.70x93.jpg"
         },
         "gender":"m",
         "id":"",
         "page_name":"Bas_tenBerge",
         "languages":{
            "en":"GOOD",
            "nl":null,
            "de":"BASIC"
         },
         "birth_date":{
            "year":null,
            "month":null,
            "day":null
         },
         "interests":null,
         "display_name":"Bas ten Berge",
         "premium_services":[

         ],
         "permalink":"https:\/\/www.xing.com\/profile\/Bas_tenBerge",
         "business_address":{
            "province":null,
            "country":"NL",
            "zip_code":null,
            "mobile_phone":null,
            "email":null,
            "street":null,
            "fax":null,
            "city":"Zwolle",
            "phone":null
         },
         "web_profiles":{
            "other":[
               "http:\/\/nl.linkedin.com\/in\/bastb"
            ],
            "blog":[
               "http:\/\/www.tenberge-ict.nl\/blog"
            ]
         },
         "private_address":{
            "province":null,
            "country":null,
            "zip_code":null,
            "mobile_phone":null,
            "email":"",
            "street":null,
            "fax":null,
            "city":null,
            "phone":null
         }
      }
   ]
}

First things first, I think requesting account details using me instead of an userid is a developer friendly choice.

Obviously I’ve modified the value of some fields. Don’t depend on the structure documented here as I can expect this structure is subject to change.

As usual, feedback is very likely to be appreciated.

Update I got feedback in the XING developers forum on xing.com. The API documentation is fairly complete, it has an overview page which shows the methods and a detailed page per method. That detailed page has an OAuth test console, showing the full structure of the data returned in XML or JSON format.