June 2019 Summaries

Postman Proxy is a tool designed to help developers inspect and understand web traffic from mobile devices, reflecting the increasing dominance of mobile devices in web traffic. By utilizing a proxy server, which acts as an intermediary between the client and server, developers can capture and analyze API requests to better understand the communication between mobile devices and servers. This capability is particularly useful for debugging, identifying security issues, and recognizing behavioral differences among various mobile devices. The setup involves connecting a computer and mobile device to the same wireless network, configuring the proxy settings in Postman, and capturing requests as they occur, providing valuable insights into mobile application performance and potential vulnerabilities.

Envestnet | Yodlee, a FinTech company serving millions of consumers through a cloud-based API, leverages Postman to facilitate communication with developers across various technical skill levels, including those working at banks and financial institutions. By offering two distinct Postman collections—one with 63 endpoints for in-depth exploration and another with 5 endpoints for immediate use—Envestnet | Yodlee caters to both experienced and novice developers. The company uses Postman's scripts to dynamically generate bearer tokens and simplifies data handling for non-technical users, allowing JSON responses to be converted into CSV format for easier interpretation. Envestnet | Yodlee's API capabilities, which include account aggregation and verification, are enhanced by FastLink for account access and can be demonstrated through hackathons and events like Money20/20. These initiatives make Postman a universal tool within the company, enabling rapid development of fintech applications and allowing less technical users to engage with and present complex technical products effectively.

Postman has reintroduced its Interceptor feature in version 7.2 of its native apps, following its deprecation when Google stopped supporting non-Chrome OS apps. Originally a Chrome extension that allowed users to capture requests and cookies directly from the browser, Interceptor was missed by users who migrated to the native Postman apps due to its unique functionality. The new Interceptor Integration, however, focuses on syncing cookies rather than capturing requests, as the current Postman proxy already handles the latter. Users can specify browser domains in Postman, allowing Interceptor to capture and sync cookies for those sites to the user's Postman instance. To utilize this feature, users must ensure they have Postman v7.2 or higher, install the Postman Interceptor extension, and enable the necessary settings in their browser and Postman app.

With the release of Postman v7.2, the platform now offers support for GraphQL, a highly requested feature by users. GraphQL is a query language for APIs that provides advantages over RESTful APIs, such as allowing users to request precise data and making it possible to retrieve extensive information with a single query. The update enables users to send GraphQL queries in the request body, utilize GraphQL variables, and benefit from query autocompletion. Additionally, Postman users can create and store GraphQL schemas directly within the app, enhancing the development and testing process for GraphQL APIs. This integration marks a significant step for Postman in catering to developers working with the increasingly popular GraphQL specification.

Part of a blog series exploring the Postman API Network, this article highlights the NAB API provided by National Australia Bank (NAB) Limited, which offers developers access to information about banking locations, exchange rates, and account details. Uncommon among large banks due to security concerns, NAB's openness to developers aims to enhance customer experiences through innovative app development. The NAB API includes a Postman Collection for easy access to current foreign exchange rates and the locations of NAB branches, ATMs, and other facilities. An API key, obtainable via the NAB Developer Portal, is required to use these features, with a Sandbox API key available for testing. The API allows users to fetch data on various parameters such as geo-coordinates, operational hours, and facility availability, supporting both developers and customers in accessing valuable banking information. Through Postman, users can explore the NAB API and other APIs, contributing to a growing network of over 10 million developers.

Rocketium transitioned from an online video creation tool to an API-first company by integrating their video and image creation API into their business model, driven by customer demand for scalable, templated video creation without a user interface. This shift necessitated a comprehensive overhaul of their marketing, sales, and support processes, with Postman playing a pivotal role in facilitating these changes. Postman enabled the company to streamline communication between technical and non-technical teams, enhance customer onboarding, and improve the overall sales process by providing easy-to-use code snippets and shared collections for demonstrations and pilots. As Rocketium embraced an API-first approach, they recognized the broader industry trend of businesses leveraging third-party APIs to accelerate market entry and focus on core competencies, emphasizing the importance of APIs in the tech-enabled business landscape. The company's experience highlights the utility of tools like Postman in making APIs accessible and operationally integral to both developers and business teams.

API testing has become increasingly crucial as the world shifts towards an API-driven approach, emphasizing the need for flexibility in building software systems. Postman, initially a side project, has evolved into a comprehensive API development platform that supports the entire API lifecycle. With the growing importance of APIs as business decisions, ensuring their stability, security, performance, and availability is paramount, making API testing an essential component of API design and development. The testing process can be divided into three phases: writing well-defined tests, running tests both on-demand and on a schedule, and integrating monitoring alerts with API analytics. These phases ensure comprehensive test coverage, prevent broken APIs from shipping, and maintain performance standards. Postman facilitates this process with features like Collections for writing tests, Newman for running tests on-demand, and Monitors for scheduled tests, alongside integrations for analytics and alerts. This structured approach allows companies to maintain a resilient testing pipeline that aligns with an API-first strategy, ensuring systems function together seamlessly and continue to perform as expected over time.

Kloudless, headquartered in Berkeley, CA, offers unified APIs that simplify the integration of multiple cloud services by abstracting the differences into a single interface, serving over 20,000 developers with more than 500 million API requests per month. The company addresses the need for a product that seamlessly integrates cloud services while providing a single, straightforward developer interface. To facilitate ease of use, Kloudless provides a Postman Collection, created by Customer Success Engineer Chris Prochnow, which allows developers familiar with Postman to quickly begin using the platform. This collection includes custom tests to reduce troubleshooting interactions by alerting users to common errors, such as missing variables or query parameters, thus enhancing the user experience and streamlining the testing process.

Postman simplifies developers' workflows by offering custom webhooks that enable real-time notifications and automate processes between Postman and other applications. Unlike regular API calls that require periodic data pulls, webhooks push instant updates to connected services, allowing for efficient information flow and integration. The platform currently supports customizable actions such as backing up collections, sharing monitor results, and sending team activity feeds. An example provided is integrating Postman with Flock, an instant messaging service, to receive periodic monitoring results from a Postman collection named Restaurant Finder API. This involves creating an incoming webhook in Flock, generating a unique URL, and configuring the Postman dashboard to send updates to the specified Flock channel. Developers are advised to ensure their third-party applications can handle the potential volume of requests generated by webhooks to avoid data loss during service interruptions.