April 2016 Summaries

Importing projects from SoapUI into Postman is streamlined thanks to Postman's support for Swagger, allowing users to transfer URL, headers, and payload data with ease. The process begins by creating a SoapUI project using an API, such as Facebook’s, with resources available from Smartbear’s open-source projects on GitHub. After downloading the relevant project file and importing it into SoapUI, users can export it as a Swagger file by specifying the API's base path. This Swagger file can then be imported into Postman, resulting in an organized collection of API requests. While Postman automatically organizes requests into folders and supports environment variables, it does not currently reflect some SoapUI features like load testing, which may be addressed in future updates.

API documentation can be challenging for beginners due to its often complex and reference-heavy nature, which may hinder initial understanding and use. To create a more effective first user experience, documentation should mimic the learning process of programming by introducing basic concepts with specific examples and gradually building toward more complex applications. It's important to consider the diverse backgrounds and languages of potential users, offering examples in various programming languages and clearly explaining the API's capabilities and limitations. Ease of access is crucial, with simplified authorization processes and clear instructions on how to quickly utilize and integrate the API with other systems. Comprehensive reference documentation should include detailed request and response types, along with sample code in different languages to facilitate ease of use. Providing accessible support channels is essential for users to resolve issues quickly, enhancing their overall experience and the perceived value of the API.

Cronofy is an API-based platform that integrates with calendar services like iCal, Google, and Outlook to facilitate real-time event management and bookings, particularly benefiting sectors like travel and labor marketplaces. The company leverages Postman extensively for both customer-facing and internal processes, allowing developers to test APIs easily with the "Run in Postman" button, which aids in fast onboarding and reduces integration barriers. Internally, Postman supports Cronofy in API design and testing, ensuring reliable functionality and seamless integration with other APIs, such as their custom integration with Chartmogul for subscription metrics. This integration process includes building a custom Ruby gem and extensive testing, which led them to open-source the library for community use. Cronofy's adoption of Postman began when it was a mere Chrome extension and has since become integral to their development workflow, offering visualization and testing capabilities to enhance product development and integration confidence.

EnergyCap, a prominent provider of energy management and accounting software since the 1980s, is enhancing its products with modern software development, focusing on improving interfaces and expanding API accessibility. Their development team of 12, supported by QA leads Jared Matthews and Ann Denner, has transitioned to a microservices architecture, which increased their API complexity and necessitated a more collaborative and automated testing approach. Postman, along with its command line tool Newman, has become central to their process, replacing Fiddler due to its superior capabilities for test documentation and automation. The QA team effectively uses Postman to unify the company’s efforts around APIs, facilitating onboarding and customer data management for tech and sales support staff, while project managers utilize Newman to automate tasks like bill entry. The collaborative environment enabled by Postman has significantly reduced the time required for QA testing from a week to mere hours, binding the 43-strong organization together and positioning the QA team as the API expert within EnergyCap.