Exact Target SOAP API Authentication Issue

Question

I'm having a hard time understanding the authentication model for the Exact Target APIs. The REST API requires a clientId and a clientSecret to obtain an access token for subsequent requests. Yet the SOAP API requires a username and password. I did see this regarding passing the token as a SOAP Header, but it doesn't work. It ALWAYS fails with soap:Server: "Unplanned Outage". Passing a username/password in a SOAP header and the API calls work fine.

First question, is someone able to explain the authentication disparity between the two APIs? Second question, does the method of passing the oauth token in a SOAP header not work?

Answer 1

First question: SOAP is the older technology, and REST is the new and improved. REST has made us rethink how we do some things, and retrofitting is still going on.

Second question: I use the oauth all the time in the SOAP header. Mine is slightly different than what you find on the code@ site, I've posted it below. Let us know if it works, and we'll update the code@ site.

<soapenv:Header>
   <fueloauth xmlns="http://exacttarget.com">hs828jcnjkwq2bhkve3j4va3</fueloauth>
</soapenv:Header>