Cisco Meraki

Cisco Meraki provides cloud-managed networking hardware administered through the Meraki Dashboard. The Dashboard API v1 lets you programmatically manage organizations, networks, devices, and licensing. Nexla connects to the Meraki Dashboard API using a Bearer API key, allowing you to ingest administrative, device, and licensing data as a source and push configuration or provisioning changes as a destination.

Power end-to-end data operations for your Cisco Meraki API with Nexla. Our bi-directional Cisco Meraki connector is purpose-built for Cisco Meraki, making it simple to ingest data, sync it across systems, and deliver it anywhere — all with no coding required. Nexla turns API-sourced data into ready-to-use, reusable data products and makes it easy to send data to Cisco Meraki or any other destination. With comprehensive monitoring, lineage tracking, and access controls, Nexla keeps your Cisco Meraki workflows fast, secure, and fully governed.

Features

Type: API

SourceDestination

• Seamless API Integration: Connect to any endpoint as source or destination without coding, with automatic data product creation
• Visual Composition & Chaining: Build complex integrations using visual templates, chain API calls, and compose workflows with data validation and filtering
• API Proxy: Expose curated slices of your data securely with a secure and customizable API proxy that validates and transforms data on the fly
• Request optimization with intelligent batching, retry, and caching to minimize API calls and costs

Prerequisites

Before creating a Cisco Meraki credential, you need a Meraki Dashboard API key. The Meraki Dashboard API uses Bearer token authentication, with the key sent in the Authorization header as Bearer <API_KEY>. API keys are generated for, and inherit the permissions of, the dashboard administrator account that creates them, so use an account with the access level appropriate for your integration.

To generate your Meraki Dashboard API key, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to the Meraki Dashboard at https://dashboard.meraki.com using an organization administrator account.

2. Confirm that API access is enabled for your organization. Navigate to Organization > Settings, scroll to the Dashboard API access section, ensure Enable access to the Cisco Meraki Dashboard API is checked, and click Save Changes. API access is enabled by default on most organizations.

3. Open the Organization menu and select API & Webhooks. This page is visible only to organization administrators.

4. Click the API keys and access tab at the top of the page.

5. Click Generate API Key to create a new key. The key is associated with your administrator account and inherits its permissions.

6. Copy the API key immediately and store it securely, as the full key value is shown only once at the time of generation. If the key is lost, revoke it and generate a new one.

Treat the API key like a password: never commit it to source code or share it publicly, and revoke and regenerate it promptly if it is exposed. For complete details on authentication and available resources, see the Meraki Dashboard API v1 documentation.

Authenticate

Credentials required

Field	Required	Secret	Description
API Key Value	Yes	Yes	An encoded string value used as a secret token to authenticate API requests

Create a credential in Nexla

1. After selecting the data source/destination type, click the Add Credential tile to open the Add New Credential overlay.

2. Enter a name for the credential in the Credential Name field and a short, meaningful description in the Credential Description field.

3. Enter your Meraki Dashboard API key in the API Key Value field. This is the key you generated in Prerequisites. Nexla sends it in the Authorization header as a Bearer token for all API requests, so it must be kept confidential.

   If your API key is compromised, revoke it from the API & Webhooks > API keys and access page in the Meraki Dashboard and generate a new one. For detailed information about authentication and available endpoints, see the Meraki Dashboard API v1 documentation.

4. Click the Save button at the bottom of the overlay. The newly added credential will now appear in a tile on the Authenticate screen during data source/destination creation.

Use as a data source

To create a new data flow, navigate to the Integrate section, and click the New Data Flow button. Select the Cisco Meraki connector tile, then select the credential that will be used to connect to the Meraki Dashboard API, and click Next; or, create a new Cisco Meraki credential for use in this flow.

Endpoint templates

Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure data sources to ingest data from common Cisco Meraki endpoints. Select the endpoint from which this source will fetch data from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Available endpoint templates are listed in the expandable boxes below.

[Rest API] Returns the identity of the current user

This endpoint template returns the identity of the user associated with the credential's API key. Use it to verify authentication and retrieve the administered identity for the current account.

[Rest API] List API key metadata for the current user

This endpoint template lists the non-sensitive metadata associated with the API keys that belong to the current user. Use it to audit which keys exist for the identity without exposing the key values themselves.

[Rest API] Retrieve purchasable entitlements

This endpoint template retrieves the list of purchasable licensing entitlements. Use it to ingest the entitlements available for subscription-based licensing.

[Rest API] List available subscriptions

This endpoint template lists the licensing subscriptions available to the administered account. Use it to ingest subscription records for reporting or license management.

[Rest API] Claim a subscription into an organization

This endpoint template claims a subscription into an organization. Use it to associate a purchased subscription with a target organization.

[Rest API] Find a subscription by claim key

This endpoint template finds a subscription by its claim key. Use it to validate a claim key and retrieve the associated subscription details before claiming.

[Rest API] Get compliance status for requested subscriptions

This endpoint template returns the compliance status for the requested subscriptions. Use it to monitor licensing compliance across your subscriptions.

[Rest API] Bind networks to a subscription

This endpoint template binds networks to a subscription. Use it to attach one or more networks to a licensing subscription.

[Rest API] Return a single device

This endpoint template returns a single device by its serial. Use it to ingest the attributes of a specific Meraki device.

[Rest API] Update the attributes of a device

This endpoint template updates the attributes of a device, such as its name, address, or tags. Use it when you need to modify device configuration as part of a data flow.

Once the selected endpoint template has been configured, click the Test button to the right of the endpoint selection menu to retrieve a sample of the data that will be fetched. Sample data will be displayed in the Endpoint Test Result panel on the right, allowing you to verify that the source is configured correctly before saving.

Manual configuration

Cisco Meraki data sources can also be manually configured to ingest data from any valid Meraki Dashboard API endpoint, including endpoints not covered by the pre-built templates, chained API calls, or custom request parameters. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, endpoint URL, date/time and lookup macros, path to data, metadata, and request headers.

Once all of the relevant settings have been configured, click the Create button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the new Cisco Meraki data source. Nexla will now begin ingesting data from the configured endpoint and will organize any data that it finds into one or more Nexsets.

Use as a destination

Click the + icon on the Nexset that will be sent to the Cisco Meraki destination, and select the Send to Destination option from the menu. Select the Cisco Meraki connector from the list of available destination connectors, then select the credential that will be used to connect to the Meraki Dashboard API, and click Next; or, create a new Cisco Meraki credential for use in this flow.

Endpoint templates

Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure destinations to send data to common Cisco Meraki endpoints. Select the endpoint to which data will be sent from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Then, click on the template in the list below to expand it, and follow the instructions to configure additional endpoint settings.

[Rest API] Generate an API key for an identity

This endpoint template generates an API key for an identity. Each record from your Nexset is sent as a request to create a new API key for the administered identity.

[Rest API] Revoke an identity's API key

This endpoint template revokes an identity's API key, identified by the last four characters of the key. Provide the key suffix in the endpoint's Suffix parameter, and send one record per key to revoke.

[Rest API] Update configurations for an appliance's specified port

This endpoint template updates the configuration for a specified port on an appliance. Send the port configuration for each device and port as records from your Nexset.

[Rest API] Update the radio settings of an appliance

This endpoint template updates the radio settings of an appliance. Use it to push wireless radio configuration changes as records from your Nexset.

[Rest API] Update the uplink settings for a secure router or security appliance

This endpoint template updates the uplink settings for a secure router or security appliance. Use it to push uplink configuration changes as records from your Nexset.

[Rest API] Generate a new vMX authentication token

This endpoint template generates a new vMX authentication token for a device. Use it to provision authentication tokens for virtual MX appliances.

[Rest API] Blink the LEDs on a device

This endpoint template blinks the LEDs on a device to help physically locate it. Send one record per device to trigger the blink action.

[Rest API] Generate a camera snapshot

This endpoint template generates a snapshot of what the camera sees at the specified time and returns a link to that image. Send one record per snapshot request from your Nexset.

[Rest API] Update camera quality and retention settings

This endpoint template updates the quality and retention settings for a given camera. Use it to push camera recording configuration changes as records from your Nexset.

[Rest API] Update camera video settings

This endpoint template updates the video settings for a given camera. Use it to push camera video configuration changes as records from your Nexset.

Manual configuration

Cisco Meraki destinations can also be manually configured to send data to any valid Meraki Dashboard API endpoint. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, data format, endpoint URL, request headers, attribute exclusions, record batching, and response webhooks.

Meraki Dashboard API endpoints typically expect JSON format for write operations. For update operations, include the relevant device serial, subscription, or resource identifier in the endpoint URL or the required parameter.

Save & activate

Once all endpoint settings have been configured, click the Done button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the destination. To send the data to the configured Cisco Meraki endpoint, open the destination resource menu, and select Activate.

The Nexset data will not be sent to the Cisco Meraki endpoint until the destination is activated. Destinations can be activated immediately or at a later time, providing full control over data movement.