Link Capacity + Xero Practice Manager Integration Queues and Priorities

Link works exclusively with Xero Practice Manager. Your integration between the two systems will be set up as part of setting up your trial. Once you have created your account, the first step is to connect your account with Xero Practice Manager. Once your account is successfully connected, you will be prompted to kick off your initial sync to create your opening balances.

If you ever need to disconnect your account, you can navigate to ‘Integration’ in Link HQ and disconnect your account. You can also reconnect here if your integration ever drops out.

There are four types of syncs that occur between Link and Xero Practice Manager.  These are:

• Initial Connection Sync
• 24 Hour Sync from Xero Practice Manager
• 10 Minute Sync from Xero Practice Manager
• Link to Xero Practice Manager

The initial connection sync occurs when you first connect your Xero Practice Manager account with Link. The purpose of this sync is to populate Link with all your opening balances. The following five sync types are the syncs that occur day-to-day to ensure the data between the two apps remain reconciled.

Rate Limits

Xero Practice Manager has API rate limits. This means you can’t push unlimited changes from Link to Xero Practice Manager at the same time. Xero’s rate limits are as follows:

• 3 API calls concurrently (at the same time)
• 60 API calls per minute 
• 5,000 API calls per day

Due to these rate limits, Link creates an ‘export queue’ for every customer. This allows you to make changes as quickly as you like in Link and have these queued to update in Xero Practice Manager. For example, if you update 600 job budgets in Link, these will be reflected immediately in Link, and added to the export queue. These updates will be processed to Xero Practice Manager 60 per minute over the next 10 minutes.

If you make more than 5,000 updates in a day, these updates will remain in the queue until the next day and will be processed once more API calls become available.

Reserve Calls

Although Xero Practice Manager allows for 60 API calls per minute, Link exports updates at 30 per minute. This is to provide a buffer of API calls for the 10 minute sync which occurs every 10 minutes. 30 API calls per minute is 1,800 per hour, which means even at the restricted rate of 30 calls per minute, the daily cap of 5,000 will be hit in under 3 hours. 

Although Xero Practice Manager allows for 5,000 API calls per day, Link restricts the export to 4,500. This is to allow a buffer for the 10 minute sync. If all 5,000 calls were used by 10am, Link would not be able to import any timesheets until the next day. We therefore cap the exported updates at 4,500 per day, allowing 500 to be reserved for timesheet, staff, and special requests which are made every 10 minutes.

Queue Priority

Any changes made in Link that need to update Xero Practice Manager are added to an export queue and processed at 30 per minute. This means you can make unlimited changes in Link, and have these updates processed over time at the Xero Practice Manager rate limit.

Not all API calls are of equal priority, so the queue has been set up to prioritize the type of sync job. The priority is as followings:

1. 24 Hour Sync (from Xero Practice Manager to Link)
2. 10 Minute Sync (from Xero Practice Manager to Link)
3. Link to Xero Practice Manager

As higher priority items enter the queue, they skip ahead and are processed first. For example, every 10 minutes, a 10 Minute Sync is created and added to the queue. When this sync is added to the queue, if there are ‘Job Updates ’from Link to Xero Practice Manager in progress, the 10 minute sync will jump right to the front of the queue to be processed next. Once this is done, the queue will resume processing the Job Updates.