Connect Schwab
AlertDesk can sign in to your Schwab account through Schwab's own API -- for now only the sign-in and its refresh: it reads nothing yet, and it never trades. You need a Schwab developer account and an app of your own there, made for AlertDesk alone: never an app key another program uses with the same Schwab login. Schwab keeps one sign-in per app and login, so connecting AlertDesk ends the other program's sign-in. Your broker files keep working as they are.
Steps
- On developer.schwab.com, sign up for a developer account with your Schwab login, then create an app just for AlertDesk (the product Accounts and Trading Production) -- not one another program already signs in with. For its callback, copy the address Settings → Broker shows -- this computer (127.0.0.1), port 8080, /callback -- exactly; choose another port there first if 8080 is taken on your computer. Schwab reviews new apps: wait until it says Ready For Use.
- Your app's page there shows its App key and Secret. In AlertDesk: Settings → Broker, type both and the callback port, and press Connect.
- Schwab's sign-in opens in your browser: sign in and allow access to your accounts.
- The browser then warns that 127.0.0.1's connection isn't private: that's AlertDesk on your own computer, catching Schwab's answer. Choose to go on (Advanced → Proceed). If the browser won't, copy the whole address from its address bar into Or paste the address on Settings → Broker.
What you should see
- Settings → Broker and Health's Broker card: Connected · token good until a date 7 days ahead.
- Once a day AlertDesk refreshes the sign-in (Health shows when); after 7 days Schwab wants you to sign in again: Connect again.
If it doesn't work
- "Port 8080 is in use": another program is listening there right now (another app signing in to Schwab). Try again in a minute, or paste the address.
- "Schwab said no": the key or secret was typed wrong, or the app isn't Ready For Use yet, or its callback isn't exactly the one Settings → Broker shows.
- Another program stopped signing in to Schwab after you connected AlertDesk ("invalid, expired or revoked"): the two share an app key. Disconnect here, sign in again in the other program, and give AlertDesk an app of its own.
- To stop: Disconnect wipes the key, the secret and the tokens.