After reading tones of API success stories,many business & enterprises have started building their own API. While this sounds good, it also create problems in future if the design of the API is not well thought of. This blog throws light on the API design specifically for a business process.However, if you are very new to API and willing to start from level zero, then understand core principle of REST API before reading any further.
Resource is a central part of the API. Resource identifier, Resource representations, API operations everything are built around the resource. Anything is a part of a business can be seen as a resource.Virtual entities such as customer or vendor, non-virtual entities such as subscriptions or orders, business process such a employee on-boarding can be seen a resource.
Getting started with example
For the explanation point of view, lets select a employee on-boarding as a business process. We consider 4 different activities what business perform while on-boarding a employee.
- Creating employee
- Assigning a pay manager
- Creating a user account
- Create a email Inbox
All the above activities are performed in a sequence and are interrelated. For instance email inbox cannot be created without creating a user account.