Connect your child care management system (CCMS) with the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD) Finder to keep participating providers’ listings current.

The onboarding process covers the information your platform wants to share: availability, tuition, and operating hours. Wonderschool supports your team through connection setup, provider matching, testing, and activation of supported updates.

Sign up for API access

Sign up for API access using our request form. Enter New Mexico ECECD Finder API access as the subject and include:

• Platform name and website.
• Technical contact name and email.
• Estimated number of New Mexico provider locations.
• Which listing information you want to synchronize.

Wonderschool will follow up to support your connection setup, testing, and activation.

What kind of API is it?

The connection is designed around a REST-style API using HTTPS and JSON.

In practical terms:

• Your platform’s servers send requests to Wonderschool.
• Each URL identifies a resource, such as a provider location’s availability.
• Requests and responses use structured JSON data.
• HTTPS protects information during transmission.
• OAuth 2.0 client credentials authenticate your platform using short-lived access tokens.

For availability, your platform uses:

Every availability PUT requires an idempotency key. This identifies the request so it can be retried safely. Keys must be unique across your platform’s API client, including across different locations.

What information should we prepare?

Availability

Prepare the location’s availability status, openings by age range, and the time the information was observed.

• Available: At least one opening.
• Full: Zero openings.
• Unknown: Availability cannot currently be determined.

Each submission contains the complete availability snapshot for that location.

Tuition

Identify the tuition entries your platform should manage, including the amount and billing basis—for example, weekly versus monthly.

During setup, confirm the tuition format, supported fields, and how each entry maps to the Finder listing.

Operating hours

Prepare opening and closing times by day, the location’s time zone, and a consistent representation of closed days.

During setup, confirm the supported schedule format and treatment of exceptions.

Tuition and operating-hours operations require their own agreed specifications. For both, confirm how omitted fields, cleared values, and existing provider-entered information are handled.

Connect your provider locations

Each location requires:

• Provider authorization for the selected information.
• An approved match to its New Mexico ECECD Finder listing.
• Eligibility for the selected updates.

Use your platform’s stable location identifier in API requests. Platform signup and provider-location activation are separate steps.

How do we test the connection?

Use Postman, curl, or your platform’s normal HTTP client. Begin testing after receiving the approved test base URL, credentials, API specification, and test location details.

1. Request an access token

Send a form-encoded request to:

POST /api/v1/ccms/oauth/token
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Include:

grant_type=client_credentials
client_id=<your-client-id>
client_secret=<your-client-secret>
scope=availability:read availability:write

Use the returned token in subsequent requests:

Authorization: Bearer <access_token>

Read the response’s expires_in value and request a new token when needed. Keep credentials on your servers.

2. Submit sample availability

Replace the placeholders with your approved test connection details:

PUT <test-base-url>/api/v1/ccms/providers/<externalProviderId>/availability
Authorization: Bearer <access_token>
Content-Type: application/json
Idempotency-Key: test-location-observation-001

Example JSON body:

{
  "status": "available",
  "observedAt": "2026-09-09T18:00:00Z",
  "ageBands": [
    {
      "minAgeMonths": 18,
      "maxAgeMonths": 36,
      "openSpots": 2
    }
  ]
}

Replace the example timestamp with the actual observation time, expressed in ISO 8601 UTC format.

Age ranges include the minimum and exclude the maximum. This example covers children aged 18 months up to—but not including—36 months.

Keep ranges non-overlapping and count each physical opening once.

3. Check the result

Request:

GET <test-base-url>/api/v1/ccms/providers/<externalProviderId>/availability
Authorization: Bearer <access_token>

Check:

• Latest submission: What Wonderschool most recently received.
• Accepted snapshot: The availability currently accepted from your platform.
• Projection status: Whether the information has been applied to Finder.

Receipt, acceptance, and application to Finder are distinct outcomes.

4. Verify retries and validation

Test these cases against the agreed API contract:

For tuition and hours, use the agreed field-specific examples and verify that changing one value preserves unrelated listing information.

5. Verify the Finder listing

Shadow testing validates submissions without changing public listings.

Once a location is activated for a supported workflow, verify the intended update on its exact New Mexico ECECD Finder listing. Wonderschool helps confirm the enabled fields, update schedule, and support process before activation.