Is your API portal keeping up?

Kin Lane

May 22, 2023

Nearly every enterprise organization maintains some form of API catalog, directory, or portal, often acquired as part of an API management solution. But a common sentiment expressed by Postman users is that their existing public or private API portals are struggling to keep pace with the rapid rate at which their teams are advancing. While API portals continue to play a crucial role in facilitating the growth of enterprise operations and engagement with API consumers, organizations are encountering a recurring set of challenges in keeping their API portals relevant and effective for a variety of reasons.

Fortunately, some of our most forward-thinking customers are actively innovating and iterating to enhance the API consumer experience. In response to these challenges, they are developing solutions that address the limitations of traditional API portals. In this context, we’d like to share a few of the promising solutions and approaches we’ve observed among our customers.

The challenges to optimizing API portals

In an ideal world, API portals would always be up-to-date, serving as the go-to destination for all API consumers to find the resources they need. However, the reality within many enterprise organizations is often more chaotic. While enterprise API portals offer valuable benefits, we frequently hear about several key challenges that organizations face in maintaining and optimizing their portals. These challenges include:

1. Outdated API documentation: The documentation for APIs is not kept current, leading to discrepancies between the documentation and the actual behavior of the APIs.
2. Incomplete API documentation: The documentation lacks critical information, leaving API consumers without the necessary details to effectively use the APIs.
3. Overly complex API documentation: The documentation is too technical or convoluted, making it difficult for API consumers to understand and utilize the APIs.
4. Narrow technical focus: The portals primarily emphasize technical aspects, neglecting important business context, use cases, and other non-technical considerations.
5. Distributed API operations: API operations are increasingly decentralized across multiple teams and locations, complicating the management and coordination of API resources.

These challenges tend to be exacerbated at scale. As the number of APIs and teams increases, friction in these areas becomes more pronounced. And as API operations continue to expand exponentially, these issues can become more acute, prompting forward-thinking API producers to invest significant effort in understanding and addressing the reasons why their API portals may be falling short.

Common reasons API portals aren’t fully effective

Like many aspects of API operations, there is no malicious intent behind the challenges that API portals face in keeping up with the pace of change. Instead, the heavy workload that teams already bear is often a significant contributing factor. While each enterprise organization is unique, several common reasons have emerged to explain why API portals may not always fulfill their original promise:

1. Quick API delivery: Teams are moving quickly to deliver APIs, and the rapid pace of development can make it difficult to keep the portal up to date.
2. Lack of awareness: Some teams may not be aware of the existence or purpose of the API portal, leading to underutilization.
3. Additional workload: Publishing APIs to the portal may be perceived as extra work, and teams may be reluctant to take on additional tasks.
4. API management gatekeepers: The presence of gatekeepers in the API management process can create bottlenecks and slow down the publication of APIs to the portal.
5. Lack of accountability: API teams may not be held accountable for maintaining and updating the API portal, leading to outdated or incomplete information.

The specific challenges faced by an organization will vary depending on the processes, support, and education involved in publishing APIs to the developer portal. To optimize the role of the API portal and reduce friction for developers, it’s important to engage in conversations with teams to understand their struggles. By gaining insight into the reasons behind the friction teams face in distributing APIs, organizations can begin to explore and implement solutions that address these challenges.

The solutions to optimize API portals

This narrative is not about the demise of API portals or their replacement by something else. Rather, it is about the innovative ways in which Postman users are enhancing their existing API portals with new capabilities that facilitate keeping pace with today’s dynamic business environment. These enhancements involve investments in the following solution areas:

1. Collaboration via API workspaces: Creating collaborative spaces (Postman workspaces) where teams can work together on API design, development, and testing, fostering a more efficient and coordinated approach to API operations.
2. Modular and forkable collections: Implementing modular collections that can be easily forked and customized, allowing API consumers to adapt and reuse API resources according to their specific needs.
3. Leveraging “Run in Postman” buttons: Incorporating “Run in Postman” buttons into documentation and other resources to enable developers to quickly and easily interact with APIs directly from the documentation.
4. Public, Partner, and Private Networks: Utilizing different types of API networks to engage with various stakeholders, including public users, business partners, and internal teams, in a targeted and secure manner.
5. Reaching developers beyond portals: Engaging with developers through multiple channels beyond the traditional API portal, including blogs, social media, videos, and other platforms where developers are active.

These solutions recognize that the API landscape cannot be fully captured by a single API portal. They embrace the modular and composable nature of APIs and acknowledge the need for API operations to be similarly adaptable and flexible. While a significant portion of business may still flow through the enterprise developer portal, and teams may continue to distribute APIs via the portal, APIs have evolved to encompass more than just a portal—they are now about delivering a holistic and seamless experience to API consumers.

Create a full experience for greater success

Application developers today are faced with an ever-increasing number of APIs to manage and integrate. While a comprehensive catalog of internal or public APIs available through a single API portal is an excellent starting point for any API journey, it is equally important to make your API operations accessible through existing social media, messaging, and collaboration channels. In other words, your API offerings should meet your API consumers where they already are—on platforms such as LinkedIn, Slack, Teams, as well as in local, team, and public API workspaces and repositories.

Leading API producers like Salesforce, Twilio, Stripe, and others are enhancing their engagement with API consumers by integrating Postman workspaces and collections into private, partner, and public workspaces, creating a seamless experience that complements their existing API portals. This API platform approach to enterprise API operations extends well beyond the traditional API portal strategy that is often bundled with an API management solution.

To ensure that your API portal remains effective and relevant, it is essential to provide developers with the various resources they need right at their fingertips. By enabling developers to collaborate and network with minimal additional effort, you empower them to focus on what they do best—delivering digital business value through APIs.