Diligent API
Diligent is a cloud platform for modern governance that centralizes board workflows, risk and compliance operations, internal audit, ESG reporting, and corporate entity management. This page is an independent design exercise that asks what a well-designed Diligent API could look like: the resources it would expose, the authentication it would need, and the workflows it could unlock. Below: a hypothetical endpoint design, the technical requirements a production implementation would face, the use cases programmatic access could serve, and where to start if your team needs this kind of access today.
This page is an independent analysis by Supergood of what a well-designed Diligent API could look like. It draws on publicly available information, vendor materials, and general integration experience in this category. Nothing on this page describes an existing Diligent product, and Supergood is not affiliated with or endorsed by the vendor. If the vendor offers an official API, we highly recommend it.
What is Diligent?
Diligent is a cloud platform for modern governance that centralizes board workflows, risk and compliance operations, internal audit, ESG reporting, and corporate entity management. Teams use Diligent to manage board meetings and materials, build and maintain risk registers, design and test internal controls, run audits from planning through remediation, track compliance obligations and policies with attestations, oversee third-party/vendor risk, and collect ESG metrics across frameworks.
Core product areas include:
- Governance & Board Management (Meetings, Agendas, Minutes, Voting, Questionnaires, Secure Document Distribution)
- Risk & Controls (Risk Registers, Control Libraries, Assessments, Issues/Incidents, Mitigation Plans)
- Audit Management (Audit Plans, Fieldwork, Workpapers, Findings, Recommendations, Remediation Tracking)
- Compliance & Policy (Regulatory Obligations, Policy Lifecycle, Attestations, Certifications, Evidence)
- Third-Party Risk (Vendors, Due Diligence, Risk Ratings, Assessments, Contracts)
- ESG & Entity Management (ESG Data Collection, Framework Mapping, Subsidiaries/Entity Records)
An API for a platform like this would naturally organize around its core data entities:
- Organizations, Users, Roles/Permissions (Board Members, Executives, Risk Owners, Auditors, Compliance Officers)
- Risks (metadata, category, likelihood/impact, scores, status, owner, linked controls/issues)
- Controls (design/operating effectiveness, mappings to frameworks, test plans and results)
- Audits (engagements, objectives, workpapers, findings, recommendations, approvals)
- Issues/Incidents (severity, root cause, remediation plan, due dates, ownership)
- Policies (versions, lifecycle states, attestations, acknowledgements)
- Vendors/Third Parties (profiles, assessments, risk tier, contracts, remediation actions)
- Evidence & Documents (attachments, versions, checksum, access controls)
The Diligent Integration Challenge
GRC and audit teams rely on Diligent daily, but turning portal-based workflows into API-driven automation is non-trivial:
- Role-aware portals: Directors, executives, auditors, risk owners, and vendors each see different data and approval states
- Data lineage: Risks, controls, audits, and issues are interconnected across modules and frameworks (SOX, ISO, NIST, COSO)
- Compliance rigor: Attestations, evidence integrity, approvals, and sign-offs require careful handling and auditability
- Authentication complexity: MFA and session lifecycles complicate headless automation in regulated environments
- Mixed artifacts: Critical context lives in documents, workpapers, questionnaires, and approval histories, not just tables
What a Diligent API Could Look Like
If Diligent exposed a modern, general-purpose API, the integration challenges above suggest what it would need to get right. This is a design sketch, not documentation of anything that exists today:
- First-class authentication: session handling with support for MFA and enterprise sign-on where the platform uses them
- Consistent resources: normalized JSON schemas and pagination across the platform's core objects
- Reliable writes: idempotency keys and validation that mirrors the platform's own workflow rules
- Entitlement awareness: endpoints scoped to what each customer's licensing actually permits
The endpoint sketches, technical requirements, and use cases below flesh out this hypothetical design.
How AI agents could connect to software like Diligent: MCP servers for software without a public API →
Need This Kind of Access Today?
If your team needs this kind of access today, Supergood builds integrations on request, one customer at a time. We act at the direction of our customers, within the access they already hold. Customers bring their own accounts, licenses, and entitlements. If the vendor offers an official API, we highly recommend it.
- Schedule an Integration Assessment
A 30-minute session to review your product mix, licensing, and authentication model. - Scope the Integration
We design the access pattern around your workflows and entitlements. - Deploy with Monitoring
Go live with continuous monitoring as your platforms evolve.
Potential API Endpoints
Authentication
/sessionsWould establish a session using credentials. MFA challenges (SMS, email, TOTP) would need first-class support. Would return a short-lived auth token.
Authentication
/sessions/refreshWould refresh an existing token to keep sessions uninterrupted.
Risks
/risksWould list risks in the organization's risk register with filters and summary details.
Control Testing
/controls/{controlId}/testsWould create a control test result for a defined period with methodology, evidence, and conclusion.
Audit Findings
/audits/{auditId}/findings/{findingId}Would update finding status, severity, ownership, and remediation plan.
Policy Attestations
/policies/{policyId}/attestationsWould record a user's attestation to a policy version with proof metadata.
Use Cases
Risk & Control Data Sync
- Mirror risk registers and control libraries into your internal systems - Keep likelihood/impact, residual scores, and owners current for analytics and reporting - Normalize control mappings across frameworks to drive continuous monitoring
Audit & Issue Remediation
- Pull audit findings and route remediation tasks to Jira/ServiceNow with SLAs - Upload evidence and test results from your product while preserving approvals and lineage - Track status changes and due dates for dashboards and executive reporting
Policy & Compliance Attestations
- Automate attestations for new policy versions from your app - Capture proof (IP/device, time, version) and push acknowledgements back to Diligent - Trigger re-attestation workflows based on role, regulation, or risk tier
Third-Party Risk & Vendor Oversight
- Sync vendor profiles and assessment results to your governance hub - Drive automated re-assessments and remediation tasks for high-risk third parties - Consolidate contracts, obligations, and ratings into unified views
Connect via No-Code Tools
Automate this platform from the no-code stack you already use.
Technical Requirements
Authentication
Would require username/password with MFA (SMS, email, TOTP); supports service accounts or customer-managed credentials
Response format
JSON with consistent resource schemas and pagination across modules
Rate limits
Tuned for enterprise throughput while honoring customer entitlements and usage controls
Session management
Would need automatic reauth and cookie/session rotation with health checks
Data freshness
Near real-time retrieval of risks, controls, audits, policies, and vendor objects
Security
Encrypted transport, scoped tokens, and audit logging; respects Diligent role-based permissions and data access controls
Webhooks
Optional asynchronous delivery for long-running workflows (e.g., approvals, attestations, audit status updates)
Latency
Design target: sub-second responses for list/detail queries
Throughput
Design target: designed for high-volume risk/control sync and audit/policy processing
Reliability
Retry logic, backoff, and idempotency keys minimize duplicate actions
Versioning
Clear versioning and change management would matter as Diligent evolves
Frequently asked questions
Availability of official interfaces varies by product, plan, and licensing. Many platforms in this category gate access behind partner programs or paid modules, and there is often no broadly available, self-serve public API. Check the vendor's developer resources for current offerings.
The hard parts would be authentication (MFA, session management, enterprise controls), consistent schemas across the platform's products, and write semantics that reconcile the way the platform's own workflows do.
No. This page is an independent analysis by Supergood and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the vendor. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used for identification only. Nothing here documents an actual Diligent product or service.
Supergood acts at the direction of its customers, within the access those customers already have. We respect each customer's agreements with their software vendors, and how those agreements apply to a customer's use is a determination the customer makes. If the vendor offers an official API, we highly recommend it.
Supergood builds managed API access to enterprise software for customers on request, scoped to each customer's own licensing and entitlements. If your team needs programmatic access to a platform like this, schedule an integration assessment to discuss options.