API unavailability

Overview

Flinn relies on external APIs for some data acquisition. If an external API becomes intermittently available or unresponsive, data transmission can be delayed, incomplete or fail, causing a feature not to work properly. This can interrupt processes, halt or delay a user's workflow, and risk regulatory non-compliance or submission delays.

Hazardous situation: User-initiated actions fail to complete, or data acquisition is incomplete or incorrect, because of external API unavailability.

How we mitigate API unavailability

Resilient design. Robust data-transmission protocols are used with external APIs, and a scheduled re-ingestion and data-integrity check runs at regular intervals to detect and recover from incomplete or failed data acquisitions.
Real-time monitoring. Continuous backend monitoring detects incidents in real time and triggers an automated alert so the operations team can respond promptly. Details on the safety database data sources are available in the safety database integration details.
Guidance and commitments. Users are informed about possible delays or incomplete data due to external API intermittency.

High availability through resilient infrastructure outweighs the low residual risk of occasional external API intermittency.