Zanda's public API is still in beta, and enrolment into that beta is currently closed. That means a practice which doesn't already have API access can't get it right now, regardless of who asks. Here is what that actually changes for RIFT and RIKO, what carries on working without it, and the one thing clinics keep asking us for.
What changed since July
In July we wrote about Zanda's public API being in beta, with no endpoint for creating appointments. The substance of that hasn't changed. What has changed is the door: enrolment into the beta testing group has closed. Zanda's own support documentation now directs practices to register for the next phase from inside their Zanda account, under Help Menu → Beta Program.
We want to be plain about the consequence, because it's easy to dress up. If your practice isn't already in the beta, there is currently no route in, and that isn't something a vendor like us can shortcut on your behalf. We're in the same queue as everyone else.
RIFT doesn't wait for it
This matters less for RIFT than you might expect, because RIFT was never built to depend on API access. It runs from a data export you generate yourself in Zanda under Tools → Data Export, which takes about five minutes. That's the path essentially every RIFT clinic is on today, and it finds exactly the same money as the API route would.
The posture is the same either way. RIFT is read-only and never writes to Zanda. It reads the billing side of your practice - appointments, invoices, payments, funding claims, session packs - to find work you completed but were never paid for. Clinical notes, case files, intake forms and diagnoses are excluded outright rather than merely left unread.
When API access does open up, the export step disappears and the data refreshes on its own. That's a convenience improvement, not a capability one. Nothing about what RIFT finds depends on it.
RIKO is the one that's actually gated
RIKO's Zanda booking flow is where the beta genuinely bites. For a practice that already has API access, RIKO creates the client record through the client-profiles endpoint and then hands the patient to the practice's own Zanda client portal to choose a time and complete any forms or payment. Without API access, that first step isn't available.
Worth separating two limitations that get conflated. Beta access is one. The absence of an appointment creation endpoint is the other, and that one applies to everybody - there is no POST for appointments anywhere in Zanda's published API specification, so direct booking into a Zanda calendar isn't possible for any integration today, no matter what access it holds. On Cliniko, whose API has supported full read/write for years, RIKO creates the confirmed booking directly with no portal handoff.
The thing clinics keep asking us for
Deeper Zanda integration is the most requested item on our roadmap, and the specific ask is almost always about RIFT rather than booking. Clinics want it to stay in sync with Zanda continuously, through the API, instead of running from an export somebody has to remember to generate.
The reason is straightforward once you've used it. An export is a snapshot. It tells you what was leaking on the day you produced it, which is genuinely useful the first time and less so the fifth. What a practice actually wants is for the number to stay current on its own, so an uninvoiced session surfaces in the week it happened rather than whenever the next export gets run. Money that goes missing quietly is easiest to recover while the appointment is still recent and the patient still remembers the visit.
Constant syncing is what turns RIFT from something you check into something that just tells you. That is the capability the Zanda API unlocks, and it's the one clinics keep asking for.
Where that leaves us
Honestly, waiting, the same as any other practice. Beta enrolment is closed and there is no side door for a vendor. What we have done is build the integration against the endpoints that already exist, so the day access opens the export step can simply drop away rather than becoming a project.
What we won't do is claim capability we don't have. If a page on this site says RIKO or RIFT does something with Zanda, it's scoped to the access it actually requires, and where that access isn't generally available yet, we say so. That's a deliberate choice, and it's the reason this post exists at all.
If your practice runs on Zanda
Nothing you're using today stops working. RIFT runs from your export now and gets easier later. RIKO keeps capturing booking enquiries and routing patients correctly. If you'd like to help the API along, registering your own interest through Help Menu → Beta Program inside your Zanda account is the one lever that genuinely exists, and practice demand is what moves a roadmap. We'll post here again when the position changes.