Updates by Request: Webhooks, Estimates, and Receipts

It has been a little over a month since we launched the Request endpoint and so far we’ve seen quite a bit of interest from our developer community. The initial release included the primitives necessary for developers to request an Uber on behalf of users, but we knew we could do more, and today we are launching a few updates, including webhooks, request estimates and receipts.

Developers that utilize the Request endpoint can now leverage our webhooks service to have their applications notified when certain events happen on behalf of a user they have requested a ride for. For instance, you can immediately know when a vehicle has arrived at a rider’s pickup location and notify them appropriately.

These real-time events notify your apps when the status of a Request resource’s status has changed, which can reduce the number of API calls due to polling and provide a more up-to-date experience for users.

One of the biggest questions from developers was how to surface surge pricing to a user before they make a request. Previously, the application had to attempt to make a Request, receive a 409 — Conflict error, and then they could send the user to our surge confirmation screen.

Now, with Request Estimates, developers can make a POST to an endpoint and receive time, price, and surge information that can optimize the experience for a user while also reducing the number of requests made to the API.

We’ve created a new endpoint called Request Receipts that allows third party applications to surface the cost and details of a request to users at the end of a trip. This can further enhance the in-app Uber experience for users making requests outside the official Uber apps. Similar to the request scope, request_receipts is a whitelisted scope that requires approval before being made available to an application.

The User Activity endpoint has also been updated with a new version that now includes a start_city object that provides the name, latitude, and longitude of the cities where user activity has taken place in. This endpoint requires the repurposed history scope and will require users to re-authorize any applications that have used the history_lite scope in the past.

With less than a month left until the submission date for our hackathon hosted by ChallengePost, everyone on the API team is excited to see the great applications developers are producing to delight Uber users. Checkout our discussion board if you need help or have suggestions and be sure to follow Uber Developers for updates and announcements.

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