Issues with creating test company in sandbox API

API Issues
1

Hi,

We are trying to create a test company in the test data sandbox environment but keep getting a time out. We are posting to https://test-data-sandbox.company-information.service.gov.uk/test-data/company. We have tried on both test and live applications and both have timed out, and have tried with an empty body and a body full of data with the same result. Can you help?

2

Hi, it is not currently possible to form companies through this Rest JSON API.

Please refer to our xml specifications for company formation:
Technical interface specifications for Companies House software - GOV.UK

SDN

3

@snicholas is the above comment explaining that the documentation at Sandbox Test Data Generator API: Create a test company is incorrect?

I’m looking to achieve something similar to Rami and the documentation suggests for the sandbox to use the API above?

Thanks.

4

Yes, you can only currently develop a small number of filing options in this Rest Json platform at present, although the long term intention is to enable many more form types. For the foreseeable future the xml gateway is our only software option for forming companies.

SDN

5

@snicholas looking at the documentation above it seems that the XML Gateway relates to creating real businesses. In our context we specifically want to create test data that can be used to test our companies house integration pre-production. As such the sandbox on the surface seemed to fit that bill as we could create test data and then subsequently retrieve it in a sandboxed environment. Is there any guidance about whether the XML Gateway can be used to recreate the equivalent functionality?

6

Please refer to the information contained in this link - it contains details on how to apply for an xml specific test account. Important information for software developers - read first - GOV.UK

SDN

7

@alastairs The test-data-generator you’ve linked had been broken on 24th November by a change which made it unreachable to the public. It should be working now if you give the api call another try

1 Like
8

Hi @bcullerton I can see that I’m now able to create a test company - thanks! There are still some issues with “links” related to the company.

  • The /company/<company_number>/persons-with-significant-control-statement endpoint results in a 500 status code with a message of No static resource company/<company_number>/persons-with-significant-control-statement. The request_id returned was ptReFs-vf5YUa3wvorcbm6SYXVyE if that’s useful.
  • /company/<company_number>/officers endpoint is returning a 503 status code and display of 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Are these endpoints intended to be supported in the sandbox?

I’m trying to test whether I can create a company with PSCs and then retrieve them. I’ve tried to use the number_of_pscs property that the create end point documents.

9

The statements api doesn’t have a sandbox deployment at the moment. PSCs do have a deployment so you should be able to call the /company/{num}/persons-with-significant-control endpoint if not statements.

Officers should be working and isn’t due to an error our side, I’ll pick it up today

1 Like
10

That’s great to know about statements API not having a sandbox deployment.

It seems like the persons-with-significant-control endpoint is also returning a 503 in the same manner as officers is as a heads up.

Thanks for responding to these messages and taking a look @bcullerton :heart:

11

Officers should be back now, same error in PSCs. I’ll look at sorting.

1 Like
12

PSC lookups should be back now as well

1 Like
13

I can confirm both of those end points now respond! Thank you so much for the prompt fixing and response to this @bcullerton.

I’ll need to have a play with Sandbox Test Data Generator API: createTestCompanyRequestBody to see how to best configure the PSCs. So far it seems only using number_of_pscs doesn’t behave as I was expecting but that could be a misunderstanding on my part. I can get a PSC to appear if I set has_super_secure_pscs.

Am I right in saying the sandbox doesn’t currently support configuring disqualified officers?

14

Not currently and there’s no plans to change that at the moment

15

Good to know RE disqualified officers.

Thanks again for taking the time to look at this thread and getting the sandbox working again. These fixes mean we can look to integrate with the sandbox in a way that I had initially thought wasn’t going to be feasible.