AvaTax API 19.4 Patch Notes

This article is about the April 2019 monthly update to the AvaTax API.

Sandbox testing window

The AvaTax release schedule includes a preview period during which time the latest software is available for integration testing in the AvaTax Sandbox Environment two weeks before launching to production. If your engineering team would like a sandbox account for integration testing purposes:

• Development and Solutions Partners (DSP), please contact your Business Development Manager.
• Avalara customers, please contact your Customer Account Manager or open a support ticket.

Transaction parameter format change

To better support multi-tax transactions, the parameter format in transaction response will be changed from dictionary to array of TransactionParameterModel. If you have code that integrates with transaction parameters, this change requires an update on your side.

To make this less disruptive, we’ll release this change without any interruption to support: If you’ve made API calls with transaction parameters in the past two months, we’ll enable a company configuration for you called ParameterDictionaryEnabled. This configuration will allow the API to continue returning transaction parameters in dictionary format.

Transaction API documentation will be updated to refer to the newer format — array of TransactionParameterModel.

We recommend you update your code to work with the newer format at your earliest convenience and update your company configuration to turn the ParameterDictionaryEnabled flag off, so your integration can be fully enabled to use multi-tax parameters functionality.

Inclusion of security requirements in the documentation

Our API has multiple requirements for granting access:       

• User has a valid login
• User has an allowable user role
• User has right access level
• Account has required subscriptions
• Client is IP whitelisted or UserName whitelisted (for certain APIs)

In this release our documentation will be more specific in communicating the requirements for calling an API. For example, our CreateTransaction API will now mention the user roles allowed to call this API as well as the required subscriptions.

Other fixes and improvements

• Fixed issue of CertExpressInvite not returning correct requestLink
• Fixed null reference exception for UnlinkCertificateFromCustomer API
• Enabled default values for LocalNexusTypeId for country and state jurisdictions
• Fixed documentation typo in DeleteFirmClientLinkage API description
• Supported $include option consistently across transactions endpoints
• Allowed SSTTaxOverrideEffDate to be added, updated, and displayed through account configurations