December 2017 Summaries

Postman variables are essential tools that allow users to streamline and optimize their workflows by enabling the reuse of values, thereby adhering to the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle, and facilitating seamless configuration across different users or environments. By leveraging variables, users can effortlessly manage dynamic data such as unique IDs, timestamps, and random integers within the request builder using a simple syntax of double curly braces. The platform offers features like variable autocomplete, highlighting, tooltips, and logging capabilities, which enhance the ease of use and debugging processes. Variables are accessible in various scopes, including global, collection, and environment, allowing for efficient value management across different contexts, and they can be utilized in scripts for data extraction and request chaining. Additionally, the Quick Look feature provides a consolidated view of all environment and global variables, while the variable editor facilitates the modification of these variables, and data variables enable batch testing with data files in formats like CSV or JSON.

Postman employees faced challenges managing their small office library, as they had to manually search for books and track borrowed items. To address this, a UX designer at Postman leveraged Airtable and Postman to create "The Librarian," a serverless Slack app that streamlines book tracking. Users can search for books using the Slack command /bookbug [book-name], which sends a request to a Postman monitor URL, triggering the "Librarian" collection run. This system, integrated with Airtable for database management, provides real-time updates on book availability and borrowing status without the need to switch applications or learn new interfaces. The implementation involves creating an Airtable base, setting up a Slack app with slash commands, and configuring a Postman monitor to handle requests, though Postman webhooks are still in development and not recommended for commercial use.

With the rise of cloud infrastructure services, both individuals and organizations are increasingly migrating to streamlined platforms, necessitating automated configuration auditing for databases and server environments to prevent mismanagement. Postman Collections and Monitors provide a solution by automating these audits for Amazon RDS and AWS Elastic Beanstalk environments, requiring AWS access credentials and allowing customization for different AWS regions. These collections use AWS authorization helpers in Postman to conduct audits by running test scripts that enforce expected configuration values and report results, which can be integrated with communication tools like Slack. Users can create bot users with specific policies for audits and use Postman templates to streamline the setup process, ensuring efficient and regular infrastructure audits.

Postman has launched the Postman API Network, a comprehensive directory of public APIs that features 112 APIs at launch, with more being added regularly. Each API in the network includes a complete Postman collection created by the API's publisher, designed to facilitate quick and effective developer onboarding. This initiative aims to enhance the API development process by providing developers with up-to-date, executable API descriptions through an easily accessible platform. The network serves as a bridge between API publishers and developers, using Postman as a common tool for interaction. Developers can download collections directly into their Postman instances to start working with APIs immediately. The API Network is accessible through Postman's website or app, and API publishers are encouraged to contribute their APIs to the network.

Microsoft Corporation, founded in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, has leveraged Postman to implement effective API integration testing for its Microsoft Education platform, which caters to the K12 and higher education markets by offering APIs for classroom management tasks such as homework assignments and rostering. Despite being a new team, the Microsoft Education group utilized Postman's environment variables and test scripts to create custom flow control structures, allowing them to implement looping and retries for robust testing without waiting for native features. By using Postman's environment templates, they could seamlessly switch tests across various environments like testing, staging, and production. To enhance efficiency, they employed Postman monitoring to regularly execute their entire test suite every two hours, ensuring prompt alerts for any test failures. The transparency of Postman collections allowed the team to maintain ultimate control over their tests and integrate them with their source control system on GitHub, providing a reliable backup and facilitating ongoing development.

Postman Collections offer a structured way to organize, document, and execute groups of requests that emulate workflows, and with recent updates to Postman native apps, users can now include collection- and folder-level elements like variables, authorization, and scripts. Variables, which store values for use in multiple locations, can be scoped to a single collection, enhancing code reusability and maintainability. Scripts, leveraging Postman’s Node.js-based runtime, can be applied at the collection or folder level to dynamically execute JavaScript before or after requests, enabling the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle and simplifying tasks like testing for successful response codes across multiple requests. Authorization settings can also be defined at the collection or folder level, with options to inherit from parent elements, allowing for flexible authentication management, whether through the Postman app, Newman, or Postman monitors. These enhancements collectively improve the efficiency and scalability of workflows, providing users with robust tools to manage and automate API requests effectively.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates are essential for establishing encrypted communications between a client and a server, particularly when handling sensitive information like passwords or payment details. These certificates are frequently utilized in both testing and development environments to emulate production conditions and ensure security for APIs. In the Postman native apps, users can view and configure SSL certificates on a per-domain basis, allowing for consistent HTTPS request handling across different environments. By associating a domain with a client certificate in Postman, all HTTPS requests to that domain will include the certificate, ensuring secure communication. Users can verify the certificate's presence in the Postman console by sending a request to the configured domain using HTTPS. For further details, Postman provides resources on managing SSL certificates and troubleshooting issues with self-signed certificates.