Connecting and Authentication

• The first time you use scitran, you must provide a security key that is obtained from your Flywheel site
• When you use scitran, you do not need to install the 'addons' toolbox as in the Flywheel manual - Getting started

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First use

The first time you connect to a Flywheel site, you will be asked to authenticate. The authentication is based on a secure API Key that you retrieve by logging into the Flywheel site. To find your key

• Click on your user profile, which is found on the upper right of the Flywheel web page

• Scroll down to the API section (see image below)

Copy the API key in your user profile - it is the long string that looks like this:

Now, back on your computer in the Matlab command prompt, create a connection to your instance (in this case stanfordlabs)

st = scitran('stanfordlabs');

You will be asked to enter your API key. Paste in the key,

Please enter the API key: 

The key will be stored on your computer. It expires after a few months, so you will need to enter it again to refresh your authentication from time to time.

Verify the connection

To verify that the scitran object is connecting to your site, use the method

>> st.verify
Verified installed version 504
Verified connection

ans = 

  User with properties:

             id: '[email protected]'
      firstname: 'Brian'
       lastname: 'Wandell'
          email: '[email protected]'
         avatar: 'https://gravatar.com/avatar/eacf77651a3a7155eb0b66ddb9bf4588?s=512'
        avatars: [1×1 flywheel.model.Avatars]
           root: 1
       disabled: []
    preferences: []
         wechat: []
     firstlogin: '2016-03-16T23:05:28.246000+00:00'
      lastlogin: '2019-01-13T05:06:20.555000+00:00'
        created: 11-Mar-2016 23:14:59
       modified: 21-Dec-2018 23:23:59
         apiKey: [1×1 flywheel.model.UserApiKey]

General use

After your first use, the connection to a Flywheel instance is established by creating a scitran object and using the name of your Flywheel instance as argument to the scitran() function.

st = scitran('stanfordlabs');

The scitran object (st in this case) contains information about your Flywheel instance, access to the Flywheel SDK methods, and hidden information about your permissions.

st = 

  scitran with properties:

         url: 'https://stanfordlabs.flywheel.io'
    instance: 'stanfordlabs'
          fw: [1×1 Flywheel]

Multiple instances

You can store the API key for multiple Flywheel instances. To list the sites you have stored, use

st.listInstances;

     scitran: [1×1 struct]
         url: ''
       token: ''
    vistalab: [1×1 struct]
         cni: [1×1 struct]
     newSite: [1×1 struct]

Remove an instance this way

st = scitran('stanfordlabs','action','remove');

To refresh the API Key, use

st = scitran('stanfordlabs','action','refresh');

and you will be prompted to enter the new key, which you can obtain from the Flywheel site as described in the 'First use' case, above.