Best Practices
Working with some of our most successful partners, we’ve started to compile a collection of best practices that we believe consistently result in a superior experience. We expect this collection to evolve over time and will continue to share things to help maintain the highest quality standards among the broader community of partners.
Helpful tools
We suggest all developers test our example API calls using our dev console before getting started.
Build a landing page
When GymPact announced their integration with RunKeeper, they created a dedicated landing page. Having instructions to tell people what they needed to do made it easier for them and easier for us. We suggest you do the same. We like when things are made easier and users do too. Instructions on how to use the services once connected and links to FAQs were included.
Make it easy to connect apps
Make it obvious for users who want to connect their account with RunKeeper. Our friends at Fitocracy and Earndit allow their users to login with RunKeeper.
We also provide assets for you to include a “Connect to RunKeeper” button, which lets your users establish a connection between your website and their RunKeeper account. To configure your button code, click here.
Validate GPS-tracked activities
Some Health Graph partners want to use the platform as a source of automatically-tracked, "validated" fitness activities (runs, walks, bike rides, etc.). To learn how to differentiate between GPS-tracked and manually entered activities, please read through this short how to from the Health Graph blog.
Give attribution
We ask that you attribute RunKeeper when you are using data from the Health Graph API (activities, user info, duration, calories burned, etc.). If you are using text to give attribution, we write “RunKeeper” as one word and with a capital “R” and “K”, and ask that you do too.
You may use the following assets on your application’s default view/screen/page for the purpose of attribution.
RunKeeper Logo
RunKeeper Icon
Powered by RunKeeper
We like when partners include a link back to RunKeeper.com from the icon/logo/text, where it makes sense.
Examples:
Publish to app directory
Remember! Publish your application. We like to showcase partners in our app directory, so don’t forget to upload an icon, hero graphic and description before you go live. You can upload assets through our partner portal.
Launch RunKeeper from your app
You can build in a button or tab to launch RunKeeper directly from your application on iPhone and Android.
Example:
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Expose connected apps
We recommend having a screen/page that shows a list of connected services. On this page, you may want to include status of the connection and short description of the services. We also recommend including a mechanism for disconnecting on this page. There are two ways to disconnect an application from RunKeeper.
Learn more about it here.
Examples:
Publish a FAQ
Having a solid feedback loop for communicating user reported issues or technical errors is important. We suggest having an FAQ that we can point to for general education. For more hands on support questions, we use Zendesk, and if you do too there are great ways of connecting our support teams. You can find a list of links to partner support, here.
Use push notifications
Push notifications triggered from your application can help build confidence among users that data sync is working as expected. Notifications can be used to tell users about credit they received towards a reward for completing an activity, a time based reminder about their next workout or what they should be eating after a workout. If you do implement notifications, it’s a good idea to provide an option that allows people to turn them off.
Contact us
Have suggestions or feedback for us? Please email our API team to let us know!