AppFolio Production Checklist

Overview

AppFolio manages properties, tenants, leases, and work orders for real estate operations. A production integration handles sensitive tenant PII, financial transactions, and maintenance workflows. Failures here mean missed rent collections, unprocessed work orders, or tenant data exposure under CCPA. This checklist ensures your AppFolio API integration is resilient, compliant, and observable.

Authentication & Secrets

• APPFOLIO_API_KEY stored in secrets manager (not environment files)
• Client ID and secret separated from application code
• Key rotation schedule documented (90-day recommended)
• Separate credentials for dev/staging/prod environments
• API credentials scoped to minimum required permissions

API Integration

• Production base URL configured (https://api.appfolio.com/v1)
• Rate limit handling with exponential backoff
• Pagination implemented for property and tenant list endpoints
• Work order creation tested with all required fields
• Lease document upload validated for supported formats
• Webhook endpoints configured for tenant and payment events
• Idempotency keys used for payment and work order creation

Error Handling & Resilience

• Circuit breaker configured for AppFolio API outages
• Retry with backoff for 429/5xx responses
• Tenant PII handling verified CCPA/FCRA compliant
• Data validation on all API responses before storage
• Graceful degradation when property sync is unavailable
• Duplicate work order detection prevents re-creation on retry

Monitoring & Alerting

• API latency tracked per endpoint (properties, tenants, work orders)
• Error rate alerts set (threshold: >3% over 5 minutes)
• Failed payment sync triggers immediate P1 alert
• Work order creation failures reported within 5 minutes
• Daily reconciliation of synced property counts vs source

Validation Script

async function checkAppFolioReadiness(): Promise<void> {
  const checks: { name: string; pass: boolean; detail: string }[] = [];
  const baseUrl = process.env.APPFOLIO_BASE_URL || 'https://api.appfolio.com/v1';
  // API connectivity
  try {
    const res = await fetch(`${baseUrl}/properties?limit=1`, {
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.APPFOLIO_API_KEY}` },
    });
    checks.push({ name: 'API Connectivity', pass: res.ok, detail: res.ok ? 'Connected' : `HTTP ${res.status}` });
  } catch (e: any) { checks.push({ name: 'API Connectivity', pass: false, detail: e.message }); }
  // Credentials present
  checks.push({ name: 'API Key Set', pass: !!process.env.APPFOLIO_API_KEY, detail: process.env.APPFOLIO_API_KEY ? 'Present' : 'MISSING' });
  // Work order endpoint
  try {
    const res = await fetch(`${baseUrl}/work_orders?limit=1`, {
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.APPFOLIO_API_KEY}` },
    });
    checks.push({ name: 'Work Orders', pass: res.ok, detail: res.ok ? 'Accessible' : `HTTP ${res.status}` });
  } catch (e: any) { checks.push({ name: 'Work Orders', pass: false, detail: e.message }); }
  for (const c of checks) console.log(`[${c.pass ? 'PASS' : 'FAIL'}] ${c.name}: ${c.detail}`);
}
checkAppFolioReadiness();

Error Handling

Resources

• AppFolio Stack APIs
• AppFolio Engineering Blog

Next Steps

See appfolio-security-basics for tenant data protection and access control.