Authenticate with Plaid

You can authenticate with Plaid to create your own instance of the Plaid element through the UI or through APIs. Once authenticated, you can use the element instance to access the different functionality offered by the Plaid platform.

Authenticate Through the UI

Use the UI to authenticate with Plaid and create an element instance.

If you are configuring events, see the Events section.

To authenticate an element instance:

1. Sign in to Cloud Elements, and then search for Plaid in our Elements Catalog.
2. Hover over the element card, and then click Authenticate.
3. Enter a name for the element instance.
4. Enter the required Plaid information that you identified in API Provider Setup:
   • Plaid Public Key: Enter your public_key.
   • Plaid Secret: Enter your secret.
   • subdomain: Enter sandbox, production, or development depending on your API environment.
   • Plaid Client Id: Enter your client_id.
5. Enter the user's bank information:
   • User's Bank Password
   • User's Bank Username
   • User's Bank Name. This must match an Institution in Plaid.

6. If you want access to products other than Auth and Transactions, click Show Optional Fields, and then add the products that you want to access to the comma separated list. For example, auth, transactions, identity, income.

   Note: Identity and Income are not available by default. If you do not have access to the specified products you cannot authenticate an element instance.

7. Optionally type or select one or more Element Instance Tags to add to the authenticated element instance.

8. Click Create Instance.

After successfully authenticating, we give you several options for next steps. Make requests using the API docs associated with the instance, map the instance to a virtual data resource, or use it in a formula template.

Authenticate Through API

Authenticating through API is similar to authenticating via the UI. Instead of clicking and typing through a series of buttons, text boxes, and menus, you will instead send a request to our /instances endpoint. The end result is the same, though: an authenticated element instance with a token and id.

To authenticate an element instance:

1. Construct a JSON body as shown below (see Parameters):

   {
     "element": {
       "key": "plaid"
     },
     "configuration": {
       "public_key": "<Plaid public_key>",
       "secret": "<Plaid secret>",
       "client_id": "<Plaid client_id>",
       "subdomain": "<Plaid API environment>",
       "password": "User's password",
       "username": "User's user name",
       "bank_name": "Supported Plaid Institution Name",
       "products": "<Comma separated list of products>"
     },
     "tags": [
       "<Add_Your_Tag>"
     ],
     "name": "<INSTANCE_NAME>"
   }
   

2. Call the following, including the JSON body you constructed in the previous step:

   POST /instances
   

   Note: Make sure that you include the User and Organization keys in the header. See the Overview for details.

3. Locate the token and id in the response and save them for all future requests using the element instance.

Example cURL

curl -X POST \
  https://api.cloud-elements.com/elements/api-v2/instances \
  -H 'authorization: User <USER_SECRET>, Organization <ORGANIZATION_SECRET>' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "element": {
    "key": "plaid"
  },
  "configuration": {
    "public_key": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "secret": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "client_id": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "subdomain": "sandbox",
    "username": "user_good",
    "password": "pass_good",
    "bank_name": "Tartan Bank",
    "products": "auth, transactions"
  },
  "tags": [
    "Docs"
  ],
  "name": "API Instance"
}'

Parameters

API parameters not shown in Cloud Elements are in code formatting.

• User's Bank Name. This must match an Institution in Plaid.
• If you want access to products other than Auth and Transactions, click Show Optional Fields, and then add the products that you want to access to the comma separated list. For example, auth, transactions, identity, income.

Example Response for an Authenticated Element Instance

In this example, the instance ID is 12345 and the instance token starts with "ABC/D...". The actual values returned to you will be unique: make sure you save them for future requests to this new instance.

{
  "id": 12345,
  "name": "API Instance",
  "createdDate": "2017-08-07T18:46:38Z",
  "token": "ABC/Dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
  "element": {
    "id": 5865,
    "name": "Plaid",
    "key": "plaid",
    "description": "Plaid enables applications to connect with users’ bank accounts",
    "image": "elements/custom-element-default-logo.png",
    "active": true,
    "deleted": false,
    "typeOauth": false,
    "trialAccount": false,
    "resources": [ ],
    "transformationsEnabled": true,
    "bulkDownloadEnabled": true,
    "bulkUploadEnabled": true,
    "cloneable": true,
    "extendable": true,
    "beta": false,
    "authentication": {
        "type": "custom"
    },
    "extended": false,
    "hub": "finance",
    "protocolType": "http",
    "parameters": [  ],
    "private": false
    },
  "elementId": 5865,
  "tags": [
      "Docs"
  ],
  "provisionInteractions": [],
  "valid": true,
  "disabled": false,
  "maxCacheSize": 0,
  "cacheTimeToLive": 0,
  "configuration": {    },
  "eventsEnabled": false,
  "eventsNotificationCallbackUrl": "false",
  "traceLoggingEnabled": false,
  "cachingEnabled": false,
  "externalAuthentication": "none",
  "user": {
    "id": 12345
    }
}