Using Your Own Stock Images with the Quick Creator API

The Quick Creator (QC) API allows you to use your organisation’s own stock images when generating websites. You can either create your own custom business types or use existing business types, or both,  and then upload and tag your stock images against those business types.

When a QC site is generated, Quick Creator automatically selects the relevant stock images based on the business type you select and will be configured according to the framework/template you select. 

How it works

There are three main steps:

1. Choose or create business types using the HAL API.
2. Upload and manage your stock images using the Data API.
3. Create QC sites using the relevant business type through the QC API.

If you manage your own QC templates/frameworks, there is also an optional fourth step:

4. Configure QC Tags on your templates/frameworks so that your stock images are used in the appropriate places.

1. Choose or create business types

Before uploading images, you need to associate them with a business type.

You have two options:

Option 1: Use an existing business type

You can use any business type that already exists under your Mono account. These business types are provided by default, and the HAL response indicates whether a business type is global or local.

Global business types are provided by Mono and cannot be edited or deleted.
For example, if you already has a Plumber business type, you can upload your own stock images and associate them with Plumber .

No new business type needs to be created.

Option 2: Create a new business type

If the business type you need does not already exist, you can create a new one using the HAL API.

For example: Stroopwafel, Balloon Store, Cheese Shop

The following endpoints are available:

Important: The business type used when uploading your images must be the same business type selected when creating the QC site. It is possible to use both the options above.
 

2. Upload and manage your stock images

Once you have selected or created a business type, you can upload your own stock images through the Data API.

Data API:API Documentation

The Data API supports both individual and bulk image uploads.

Image requirements

Each image must meet the following requirements:

Required image metadata

Each image must have the following metadata:

The supported image types are:

• heroImage
• background
• singleImage
• galleryImage

A single image can be associated with multiple business types and multiple image types.

For example, the same image could be associated with:

• Business type: Restaurant
• Image types: heroImage, background

Optional metadata

You can also add additional metadata to your images:

Bulk image upload

For larger image libraries, you can upload images in bulk using a CSV file.

The CSV should use the following format:

url,businessTypes,imageTypes,mood,style,hasPeople,hasText

url,businessTypes,imageTypes,mood,style,hasPeople,hasText

For example:

https://picsum.photos/960/540?random=plumber2,Plumber,heroImage,energetic,bold,true,true
https://picsum.photos/960/540?random=plumber9,Plumber,background,cheerful,minimal,true,true
https://picsum.photos/960/540?random=plumber16,Plumber,galleryImage,cozy,classic,true,false

The businessTypes value can refer to either:

• An existing business type, or
• A custom business type that you created through the HAL API.

After uploading images

Each uploaded image receives a unique imageId.

You can use this ID to retrieve the image and its associated metadata, including the image URL.

You can also manage your image library using the following endpoints:

• Search images: GET /image/search
  • An empty search returns all images belonging to your organisation.
• Update one image's metadata:PATCH /image/{imageId}/metadata
• Update multiple images' metadata:PATCH /image/metadata/bulk

Check whether an upload was successful

Image uploads are processed as workflows or batches.

You can check the status of an upload using:

• GET /jobs/workflow/{workflowId}
• GET /jobs/batch/{batchId}

Use these endpoints to confirm that the upload and processing have completed successfully.

3. Create a QC site using your stock images

Once your stock images have been uploaded, you can create websites through your normal QC API flow.

Quick Creator API:API Documentation

When creating a site, select the business type that your stock images are associated with.
(Note: use the key (camelCase), not the name, for the business type.)

This can be either:

• An existing business type, or
• A custom business type created through the HAL API.

If you have uploaded stock images for that business type, QC will automatically select the relevant images during site generation.

The template must have the appropriate QC Tags configured for this to work. See Configure QC Tags on templates below.

Example

Suppose your organisation already has the business type Plumber.

You can upload your own images and tag them with:

businessTypes: Plumber

When you create a QC site using the Plumber business type, QC can automatically use your uploaded heroImage. 

Alternatively, if Bathroom Renovation does not exist as a business type, you can first create it through the HAL API and then upload images against it.

If your images are not being inserted

Check the following:

• Does the business type exist in the HAL API?

• Is the same business type used for both the image upload and QC site creation?

• Are the images tagged with the correct image types?

• Has the image upload completed successfully?

• Does the QC template have the correct QC Tags configured?

• If the template supports multiple languages, are the QC Tags configured for each language?

4. Configure QC Tags on templates (Optional) 

This step is only required if you manage or build QC templates.

QC Tags tell Quick Creator which type of stock image should be used in different parts of the website.

Your stock images can be used in:

• Row backgrounds
• Column backgrounds
• Image modules
• Gallery modules

Step 1: Configure QC Tags in the template editor

Row and column backgrounds

For row and column backgrounds:

1. Open the QC Tags menu in the editor.
2. Select the row or column where the image should be used.
3. Assign the appropriate image type.

For example, you can configure a row background to use: background

QC will then select an image associated with the site's business type and tagged as background.

Image modules

For Image modules, you do not need to manually configure a QC Tag.

When you add an Image module, the appropriate image type — singleImage — is applied automatically.

Gallery modules

For Gallery modules:

1. You do not need to assign an image type through QC Tags.
2. Specify how many images should be inserted into the gallery.

QC will use images tagged as galleryImage for the selected business type.

Multi-language templates

If your template supports multiple languages, QC Tags must be configured separately for each language available in the template.

Make sure the required tags are configured consistently across all languages.

Step 2: Publish the template

After configuring the QC Tags:

1. Review the template.
2. Make sure the required image types are configured for the relevant modules.
3. Configure the tags for all available languages, if applicable.
4. Publish the template.

The template is now ready to use with your organisation's stock images.