A Case Study in API Platform Growth

In a case study on API platform growth, Jennifer Craig explores the challenges and solutions in implementing a comprehensive API integration process for a large enterprise IT group. Initially, the team's well-designed APIs went unused due to a lack of visibility and accessibility, prompting them to address five critical phases of API integration: discovery, onboarding, mapping needs, exploration, and going live. They created a developer portal for API discovery, streamlined the onboarding process to make it more accessible, offered extensive documentation and case studies to help users map their needs to the API capabilities, incorporated hands-on exploration tools like Swagger UI for better understanding, and implemented traffic control and analytics for performance management. These efforts transformed their API platform into a widely utilized resource for internal apps, partner integrations, and external channels, ultimately enhancing the developer experience and API utilization.