---
title: Access data objects using the REST API
description: IDM provides RESTful access to data objects through the Common REST API. To access objects over REST, you can use a browser-based REST client, such as the Simple REST Client for Chrome, or RESTClient for Firefox. Alternatively, you can use the curl command-line utility.
component: pingidm
version: 8.1
page_id: pingidm:objects-guide:data-rest
canonical_url: https://docs.pingidentity.com/pingidm/8.1/objects-guide/data-rest.html
keywords: ["Data Object Model", "REST API"]
---

# Access data objects using the REST API

IDM provides RESTful access to data objects through the Common REST API. To access objects over REST, you can use a browser-based REST client, such as the *Simple REST Client* for Chrome, or *RESTClient* for Firefox. Alternatively, you can use the [curl](https://curl.se/) command-line utility.

For a comprehensive overview of the REST API, refer to the [REST API reference](../rest-api-reference/preface.html).

To obtain a managed object through the REST API, depending on your security settings and authentication configuration, perform an HTTP GET on the corresponding URL, for example `http://localhost:8080/openidm/managed/organization/mysampleorg`.

By default, the HTTP GET returns a JSON representation of the object.

In general, you can map any HTTP request to the corresponding `openidm.method` call. The following example shows how the parameters provided in an `openidm.query` request correspond with the key-value pairs that you would include in a similar HTTP GET request:

Reading an object using the Resource API:

```javascript
openidm.query("managed/user", { "_queryFilter": "true" }, ["userName","sn"])
```

Reading an object using the REST API:

```
curl \
--header "X-OpenIDM-Username: openidm-admin" \
--header "X-OpenIDM-Password: openidm-admin" \
--header "Accept-API-Version: resource=1.0" \
--request GET \
"http://localhost:8080/openidm/managed/user?_queryFilter=true&_fields=userName,sn"
```