API’s and Your Company’s Software

Smart use of API can help you design, develop, and implement software that is more future-ready for your company.

Do you understand what an API is and are you planning to incorporate any into your software? Are you planning to develop your own API and expose your own data through web services?

I ask these questions and write this article today because still, even in 2016, I am surprised by how many clients of ours come to us not really understanding what an API is and what the relevancy is for their business software.

Clients come to us asking to reinvent the wheel, and not even knowing it.

What is an API?

API stands for Application Programming Interface. In layman’s terms, it is a set of methods by which one piece of software can communicate with another.

In practice, developing an API for your business’ data, allows other software systems, whether in-house, or external, to access your business data in a secured and controlled fashion.

When you take advantage of another company’s API, you are leveraging the software and databases others have developed, and incorporating that into your own software.

Why should I care about APIs?

Because many times it is wise to take advantage of what has come before.

For instance, we had a client recently who wants to build and automotive information system… and was planning on scouring the Web for vehicle information and inputting it into a database we build.

What a potentially massive and error-prone process… why bother when companies like Edmunds have already done the work and provide an API from which you can gather all the vehicular data you could dream of?

Best to stand on the shoulders of giants, and focus your efforts on those unique value added propositions your software development company is offering. Invest in developing those features.

API’s can be about function, not only data.

For instance, if you are planning to build an e-commerce site, build one that provides an API to its core functions like “Add to Cart” and “Place Order”. This is one reason why we love Magento.

If your e-commerce site includes an API, then you will be able to extend your customer’s shopping experience into other platforms, like a mobile app, or 3rd party websites.

Another classic example is integrating with the Facebook and Google Authentication API’s to allow you customers a seamless registration experience on your site.

What do I do now?

Talk to your developer and/or study the documentation of the software platform your application is built upon. Double-check that it has ready-made functions to facilitate interacting with external APIs, and is also ready to expose its own data and functions via API should you eventually need that.

The modern-day platforms that Endertech embraces are all API capable… and for reference, our favorite platforms are Magento 2 for E-Commerce, Drupal 8 for Content Management Systems, and Symfony 2 for custom backend software applications.

This article was first published on endrtechnology.com