There are two ways to create an API service account for use with Alation's APIs.

For Alation Cloud Service customers on the cloud-native architecture, you can create an OAuth client application. When you create the application, a service account is automatically created and associated with the application. See Authenticate API Calls with OAuth 2.0 for instructions.
Create a regular Alation user that is dedicated to your API operations.

This page describes the second method.

Requirements

Permissions Needed

You will need a Server Admin role to do these steps.

Service Account Permissions

Before creating the service account, make sure you check the APIs by Roles table to determine which Alation role you will need in order to perform the desired operations.

Create an API Service Account

In a text editor or Excel file, copy the below template and paste it into the document.

user,display_name,email,title,role,password
[email protected],API Service Account,[email protected],API Service Account,SERVER_ADMIN,PasswordHere

Change the fields to be what you need it to be and save the file.
- user – The service account's username. We recommend that you make this the same as email.
- display_name – The name that users will see in the UI.
- email – The email account associated with the service account. We recommend that you make this the same as user, but it doesn't have to be.
- role – The Alation user role associated with the service account. Check the APIs by Roles table to determine which Alation role you will need in order to perform the desired operations. This value is case sensitive. Allowed values:
  - SERVER_ADMIN
  - CATALOG_ADMIN
  - SOURCE_ADMIN
  - STEWARD
  - COMPOSER
  - VIEWER
In Alation, go to alationdomain/admin/user_profiles/
Click Drag & Drop or Click to Upload, select the CSV file you just created, and upload it.
Alation will update and show a confirmation page that will verify the account that you're about to make. Click Confirm.
Test creating tokens with that user account and password via Refresh Token API. See Authentication for help creating tokens.