Send UK planning applications to Simpro
Turn an approved scheme into a Simpro site, customer and lead, through the API or the official Zapier app.
Simpro runs jobs, quotes and schedules for trade contractors, and it has both a large REST API and an official Zapier app with create actions, so a planning workflow can be built either way. Plota brings UK planning applications from 389 council planning portals into one classified, source-linked feed. Filter to decisions rather than submissions and a contractor sees the work that has just been approved on its patch, with the address and the description already attached.
Before you start
- Get an API key (a free demo key works for testing).
- Create a saved alert in Plota for the area and categories you want, and note its alert id.
How to connect Plota to Simpro
Alert on approvals, not submissions
For a contractor the useful moment is the decision. Create a saved alert filtered to your categories and area, and use Plota’s normalised stage so approvals separate from pending work consistently across every council.
Get Simpro credentials
Simpro is OAuth 2.0, with four grant types plus an API key that does not expire. All of them send Authorization: Bearer. The customer’s administrator requests access under System → Setup → API → Applications, and the token URL arrives in the key file they are given. Integration vendors can apply for partner-level credentials that work across client builds. The reference lives at api.simpro.co.
Work out the base URL, and the company id
Simpro is per customer: https://<buildname>.simprosuite.com/api/v1.0/, or .simprocloud.com. Every object route is namespaced by company, and on a single-company build that id is 0, giving paths like /api/v1.0/companies/0/leads/. GET /api/v1.0/info/ tells you whether the build is multi-company.
Create the site and customer, then the lead
This order is not optional. POST leads/ requires Customer and Site, both integer ids, and a lead carries no address of its own. So create or find the site, which is where the address lives and needs only a Name, create or find the customer, then create the lead against both. The Zapier app mirrors this with Find or Create Site, Find or Create Company Customer, and a Create Lead action.
Store the planning reference in a custom field
Custom fields are a two-step mechanism, and this catches people out: define the field once for the record type with POST /setup/customFields/sites/ using {"Name": "...", "Type": "Text"}, then set it per record with PATCH .../customFields/{customFieldID} and a body of {"Value": "..."}. Custom fields cannot be set in the create call, so it is always create then patch.
Simpro stores no coordinates
There is no latitude, longitude, easting, northing or UPRN field on a site, customer, lead or quote. Plota’s coordinate can go into a text custom field, but Simpro will not treat it as geographic data, so match and measure on your side and send Simpro the address.
Field mapping
What arrives from Plota, and where it belongs in Simpro. Plota field names are the ones in the API reference; every webhook carries them under data.application.
| Plota | Simpro | Notes |
|---|---|---|
address | Site Address.Address | The object is called Address and the street line inside it is also Address |
postcode | Site Address.PostalCode | Town goes in Address.City. There is no second street line and no county field |
description | Lead Description or Notes | Both accept HTML formatting |
reference | A custom field of Type: "Text" | Define it under /setup/customFields/ first, then PATCH the value |
links.plota | A custom field, or the lead Description | A Hyperlink field type exists but its value format is not documented |
location.lat, location.lng | Nowhere native | Simpro has no coordinate field on any of these objects |
(estimated value) | Lead Forecast.EstimatedPrice | With Probability, ExpectedYear and ExpectedMonth beside it |
What teams use this for
Approved extensions and conversions
An approved householder extension is a job someone is about to price. Filtered by area and category, those decisions arrive as leads the week they are made.
Commercial fit-out and change of use
Plota classifies commercial work and records the use class after the works where the council states it, so a shopfitter or a mechanical and electrical contractor can filter to the work they actually do.
Solar, heat pumps and retrofit
Renewables applications name the property and the technology in the description, which is enough to decide whether a scheme is worth a call.
Verify deliveries
Each webhook is signed - verify the Plota-Signature header (HMAC-SHA256 over timestamp.body). Full details in the API docs.
Simpro integration FAQ
Can I create leads in Simpro from planning approvals?
Yes. The REST API documents lead, customer, site, quote and job creation, and the official Zapier app has a Create Lead action. A lead needs a customer id and a site id, so create or find those first.
Should I alert on submissions or decisions?
For contractors, decisions. Plota normalises every council’s wording into a stage value, so an approval in one authority and an approval in another filter the same way. The council’s own wording is kept alongside for display.
What is the Simpro base URL?
It is per customer: your build name, then /api/v1.0/companies/{companyID}/. On a single-company build the id is 0. There is no shared host, so a product serving several contractors stores a base URL per customer.
Can Zapier watch for new leads?
No. The Zapier app has a Create Lead action but no new-lead trigger and no find-lead search, so it can push leads in and cannot deduplicate them. Sites, contacts and both customer types do have find-or-create, which is why the site and customer steps are safe to re-run.
Does Simpro accept a webhook from Plota?
No. Simpro’s webhooks are outbound, signed with an X-Response-Signature header holding an HMAC-SHA1 digest of the body. Pushing data in is a REST call made by Zapier, your automation platform, or your own code.
What are the rate limits?
Simpro documents 10 requests a second per client build per integration, and returns 429 above it. Batch routes and the display=all parameter exist to keep a sync under that.
Is it free?
A free Plota demo key covers testing, and live webhook delivery runs on the Starter plan and above. Simpro sets its own API and partner terms.