# Generate Data Connect URL
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/connect/generate-2-connect-url-apis/index.md
There are multiple options when it comes to generating a Data Connect URL for your customers to use. We cover the choices here, what functionality they provide, and when best to use them.
**Data Connect Full**
The Data Connect Full experience gives you all of the features available, and includes the ability to cater for joint borrowers within a single Data Connect session.
[Use Data Connect Full →](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/connect/generate-2-connect-url-apis/index.md#data-connect-full-including-for-joint-borrower)
**Features**
* Terms and Conditions
* Search for the user's Financial Institutions
* Sign-in (for multiple users in the case of joint borrowers)
* Select and manage one or more accounts
**Data Connect Lite**
Data Connect Lite is a minimalistic implementation of the Data Connect experience, providing a limited set of features. Data Connect Lite is a useful option if you want to handle the selection of Financial Institution and Account(s) in your own user experience.
[Use Data Connect Lite →](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/connect/generate-2-connect-url-apis/index.md#data-connect-lite)
**Features**
* Terms and Conditions
* Sign-in
**Data Connect Fix**
The Data Connect Fix option can be used to address the following scenarios:
* The connection to the user's Financial Institution is lost.
* The user's credentials were updated.
* The user's MFA challenge has expired.
[Use Data Connect Fix →](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/connect/generate-2-connect-url-apis/index.md#data-connect-fix)
**Send Data Connect Email**
The Send Data Connect Email option can be used to send an email with a Data Connect URL. This allows the user to complete their Data Connect session at a later stage.
The email contains a button which sends the user to a Full Data Connect flow when they click on it, and can also be used to generate a Data Connect URL suitable for joint borrowers.
[Use Send Data Connect Email →](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/connect/generate-2-connect-url-apis/index.md#send-data-connect-email)
### How It Works {#how-it-works}
Data Connect enables customers to grant authorization to access their financial data using their account credentials.
This financial data is then made available to partners using [Data Connect products](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/products/index.md).
The Data Connect `experience` parameter enables you to configure parts of the Data Connect UI and functionality. See the [Configure the Data Connect Experience](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/connect/configure-connect-experience/index.md) section for more information. The `redirectUri` specifies where the customer will be redirected to once they have completed authentication at their Financial Institution and permissioned access to their accounts.
These endpoints require [Authentication](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/onboarding/index.md#authentication).
Tip: If you are interested in using the Connect Transfer flow for setting up Deposit Switches or Bill Pay Switches, see the [Deposit Switch and Bill Pay Switch](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/products/pay/switch/index.md) documentation.
#### Session time-out {#session-time-out}
Data Connect URLs are valid for 2 hours after being generated. Once the customer opens the Data Connect experience, the session is valid for 1 hour after authentication. The Data Connect experience displays an alert after 5 minutes of inactivity (this is extended to 10 minutes if the customer is adding OAuth accounts, to allow for time to interact with the bank's website), and the session terminates after 2 further minutes of inactivity.
#### Webhooks {#webhooks}
When you are calling an API for generating a Data Connect URL you are required to send a URL for receiving [Data Connect Webhooks](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/webhooks/webhooks-connect/index.md). These are notifications that are sent to the `webhook` URL when different events occur during the Data Connect flow, see [Data Connect Webhook events](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/webhooks/webhooks-connect/webhooks-events-connect/index.md) for a list of these.
Tip: For testing purposes, you can use tools like webhook.site or beeceptor.com that receive webhooks and post the content for you to review (note that this is not an official endorsement of any of these services). In production, you **must** use your own secure webhook service. Note: If we get a 200 HTTP response from your webhook listener server, the webhook event is registered as a success. For any non-200 HTTP status code (failed event), Mastercard resends the webhook.
Our retry logic will function for 3 days with an exponential back-off, meaning we will try multiple times within the first few minutes followed by a retry every hour for 72 hours. The exact instances of each retry within the first few minutes are as follows:
12ms, 72ms, 432ms, 2592ms, 15552ms, 93312ms.
The exception to this is the `ping` event sent when the Generate Data Connect URL is first called. If we do not get a 200 response to this event, the Data Connect URL is not created and the API call fails.
Note: Chase bank (JPMorgan Chase) has removed support for certain types of WebView traffic. For more information see the [Chase Developer documentation](https://developer.chase.com/products/aggregation-consent/guides/launching-the-oauth-flow-in-a-secure-container/)
#### Software Development Kits (SDKs) {#software-development-kits-sdks}
Once you have generated a Data Connect URL you'll need to provide a front end experience for your customers to grant permissions on their financial accounts. The web and mobile SDKs provide you with encapsulated tools to make this easy. See [Integrating with Data Connect](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/connect/integrating/index.md).
#### Data Connect Full Flow {#data-connect-full-flow}
The following is an example of a Data Connect Full flow:
Diagram connect-flow-simplified
### Data Connect Full (including for Joint Borrower) {#data-connect-full-including-for-joint-borrower}
Data Connect Full provides all the screens needed for the complete user experience. The Data Connect Full experience provides screens to allow the user to find and select their FI, sign-in, agree to the terms and conditions and privacy policy, and then select the account(s) that they want to connect to Open Finance.
To use a customized Data Connect experience, provide the experience ID as `experience` in the request body.
API Reference: `POST /connect/v2/generate`
To generate a user experience that also covers joint borrowers, use the following endpoint:
API Reference: `GET /connect/v2/generate/jointBorrower`
### Data Connect Lite {#data-connect-lite}
Data Connect Lite gives you the flexibility to build your own screens to allow the user to select the FI and account, with Mastercard hosting the Terms and Conditions and sign-in screens only.
In order to use Data Connect Lite you need to supply an `institutionId`. To facilitate this you can perform a search using the Get Institutions endpoint given a search term from your customer. Once the customer selects an institution from the list, you will have the `institutionId` needed in the Data Connect Lite endpoint.
API Reference: `GET /institution/v2/institutions`
Once you have the `institutionId` for the institution concerned, pass it to the following endpoint in order to generate a sign-in screen that is appropriate to the FI. The customer is then prompted to accept the terms and conditions and privacy agreement before sign-in.
To use a customized Data Connect experience, provide the experience ID as `experience` in the request body. For Data Connect Lite, this is mainly useful to enable account type filtering.
API Reference: `GET /connect/v2/generate/lite`
### Data Connect Fix {#data-connect-fix}
Data Connect Fix can be used when a problem occurs, such as the connection to the user's FI being lost.
You will need the `institutionLoginId` relating to the user account in question (you can get this value using the [Account Aggregation](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/products/manage/account-aggregation/index.md) endpoints such as Get Customer Account by ID).
Not all connection issues can be resolved using Data Connect Fix. The [Aggregation Status Code](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/products/manage/aggregation-status-codes/index.md) returned when you call one of the Account Aggregation endpoints will indicate what is causing the issue, and whether [using Data Connect Fix](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/products/manage/aggregation-status-codes/index.md#using-data-connect-fix) will help.
The Data Connect Fix URL can be presented to the user to allow them to re-establish the connection with the FI.
API Reference: `POST /connect/v2/generate/fix`
### Send Data Connect Email {#send-data-connect-email}
Instead of obtaining a Data Connect URL and displaying that link to the user directly, you can also generate an email containing a link which is sent to the user. The email includes a button which opens the Data Connect application.
You can specify the email's subject, the name and company from which the email originates, the signature, and the customer's name. Once sent, the Data Connect URL will be valid for 3 days, so the user has time to perform the Data Connect session when convenient to them.
API Reference: `POST /connect/v2/send/email`
A second version of this endpoint is provided for joint borrowers:
API Reference: `POST /connect/v2/send/email/jointBorrower`
## Resources {#resources}
* [Status Codes](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/errors/error-list/index.md) are displayed when something interrupts the process of the Data Connect application. The error code number and description can help you know what the issue is and how to resolve it.
* [Data Connect Events](https://developer.mastercard.com/open-finance-us/documentation/connect/integrating/sdk/events/index.md) are events sent from the Data Connect app through the SDK to your web and mobile apps.