API collection

Overview

An Application Programming Interface (API) collection consists of API endpoints that share a common access pattern, allowing them to be managed together. For example, group Salesforce endpoints into an API collection if recipes used by the Sales team will call them.

The API Platform provides enterprise-grade capabilities for API management. It includes an API gateway, governance, design, security, and monitoring features. The API Platform allows creating API proxies that securely forward traffic to internal APIs. It also enables creating API recipes, which expose Recipe functionality as API endpoints.

This allows sharing data with partners or using the functionality in other Recipes. Users can create API collections by grouping endpoints, whether Recipe-based or Proxy-based. API publishers controls access to Endpoints, monitor requests, and set usage limits.

API monitoring

API monitoring tracks and analyzes API usage and performance. The API platform dashboard visualizes real-time data for endpoints and API collections. Metrics such as response times, error messages, and traffic patterns enable proactive API management and optimization.

API Governance

API governance ensures that APIs remain secure, compliant, and managed according to best practices. It includes activity auditing, versioning, and lifecycle management. Granular access control and policies help manage usage and access. API access policies enforce rate limiting and quota management. These policies prevent overuse by a single client. They ensure efficient API usage.

The API platform Dashboard displays real-time data for endpoints and API collections and a summary of API activity, Performance, and Client usage.

Monitor the overall performance of the API platform or view detailed data for a specific endpoint collection or requesting customer. Successful requests and errors provide an overview of the health of API endpoints.

Use the policy violations metric to identify clients or collections that generate abnormal API calls. The API Collections page displays all API collections within a Workspace.

Filters

Modify the dashboard output using filter parameters. The dashboard defaults to the last 30 days, all clients, and all collections. Change the filters to customize the dashboard view. Filters reset when you leave the page.

Figure: API Dashboard Filters

API Activity

The API Activity graph summarizes all processed API requests. The graph provides a visual representation of trends, spikes, or drops in API usage. Use the graph to identify periods of high activity or potential issues with the API.

Figure: API Activity

Peak Concurrent API requests

The Peak Concurrent API Requests graph displays the maximum number of API requests processed simultaneously. The bar height represents the highest number of concurrent requests during peak activity periods.

Figure: Peak Concurrent API requests/

This section provides insights into API load at any given time. It helps identify peak usage periods, supporting capacity planning and ensuring the infrastructure can handle high loads without performance issues.

Top Clients and Endpoints by Request Count

The Top Clients by Request Count and Top Endpoints by Request Count graphs display the most active API consumers and the most frequently accessed endpoints. The data updates based on the selected filters.

Figure: Top Clients and Endpoints by request count bar graph

API Collections

An API collection includes one of the following:

• API recipe collection

• API proxy collection

The type of collection you create depends on your use case.

API recipe collection

An API recipe collection is a set of endpoints, where each endpoint is built from an individual API recipe. Each recipe corresponds to a single endpoint. With an API recipe collection, you can provide powerful API endpoints to internal users, such as team members, and external users, such as your organization's end users. By grouping related API recipe endpoints into a collection, you can easily manage access to the endpoints.

Prerequisites for API recipe collections

• Create a new project or select an existing project.

• Create a folder in the project and add one or more API recipes to it. When you add a new API recipe to the folder, it is automatically included in the collection. It is recommend organizing related API recipes together.

Create an API recipe collection

1. Log in to AIW.

   The orchestrate platform displays by default.

2. Navigate to Integration Hub > API collection.

3. Click Create New Collection.

   The New API recipe collection page is displayed.

4. Select Choose Collection type to select API recipe collection.

   

   Figure: New API recipe collection

5. Click Next.

6. Select Choose a configuration type to specify the configuration to use for recipe collection.

   

   Figure: Choose a configuration type

   1. Choose either Use existing recipes or Import OpenAPI specification.

   2. Select recipe from Recipe folder.

   3. Click Next

7. Navigate to Customize endpoints and select the checkbox for each endpoint to add to the collection.

   

   Figure: Customize endpoints

8. Navigate to Set collection details and enter the following information:

   

   Figure: Set collection details

   Field Description

   Field	Description
   Collection name	Specify the title of the Collection that groups related data or items together
   Version	Enter the Version of the collection, indicating updates or changes over time
   Description	Enter brief explanation of the collection’s purpose, contents, or significance

9. Click Create API Collection.

   

   Figure: Create API collection.

   The Endpoints are successfully created.  

Edit an API collection

To edit an API collection, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to Integrations > API collection. The Orchestrate platform displays by default.

2. Select the API collection you want to edit. The API collection overview page opens.

3. Click Ellipsis menu, to Rename, Edit, Publish, and Delete endpoints that are available within the collection.

   

   Figure: Edit API Collections

API Proxy Collections

An API proxy collection contains proxy endpoints, which act as intermediaries between an API client and an API server. When a request is sent to a proxy endpoint, forwards it to the corresponding endpoint in the backend API.

Proxy endpoints enhance security and control for internal APIs. Instead of sending requests directly to the backend API, teammates and external collaborators send them to a secure proxy endpoint. This setup also enables access to the API Platform’s monitoring and access control features.

Prerequisites for API Proxy Collections

• Create a new project or select an existing one.

• Create an HTTP connection in the project to forward requests.

To access the API Collections page, perform the following steps:

1. Log in to the AIW application.

2. Navigate to Integration Hub > API Collections.

3. Click Create new collection.

   The New API Proxy Collection page is displayed.

4. Use Choose collection type to select an API proxy collection. Click Next.

   

   Figure: A

5. Use Choose a target HTTP connection to forward requests. Select an existing HTTP connection from the list or create New connection.

   Note: Currently, only HTTP connections with No-Auth, Query, Basic, Header, and OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials authentication types are supported.

   

   Figure: Choose a target HTTP connection

   To create new Target HTTP connection, perform the following steps:

   1. Click New connection. Clicking the New Connection button displays additional fields for configuring a new connection.

   2. Enter all the mandatory fields. Refer to field description.

      Field Description

      Field	Description
      Connection Name	A unique name to identify the connection
      Location	The physical or cloud location where the connection is hosted
      Connection Type	The type of connection, such as API, database, or external service
      Authentication type	The authentication method required, such as OAuth, API key, or basic authentication
      Endpoint has case-sensitive headers?	Specifies whether the API endpoint distinguishes between uppercase and lowercase headers
      Base URL	The root URL of the API or service being connected to
      Use Custom TLS/SSL certificate settings	Enables the use of a custom TLS/SSL certificate for secure communication

   3. Click Connect. A new HTTP connection is created.

   Click on existing HTTP connection and choose a configuration type to specify the configuration to use in proxy collection.

   

   Figure: Configuration types

   Manual Configuration

   1. Creates an empty collection where you can add endpoints later.

   Import OpenAPI specification

   1. Upload an OpenAPI 3.0 specification file in JSON or UTF-8 encoded YAML format

   2. Enter the specification URL.

   3. Use the OpenAPI specification to automatically set up the schema for the endpoints added in the next step.

   Only when an OpenAPI specification is imported: Go to Customize Endpoints and select the checkbox for each endpoint to add to the collection.

6. To configure an endpoint, select Edit details and update the following information:

   1. Endpoint name: Enter a descriptive name for the proxy endpoint.

   2. Endpoint path: Define the endpoint path appended to both the proxy and target base URLs. The path can include parameters and must follow the required guidelines.

   3. HTTP method: Select the HTTP method for the endpoint.

   4. Request timeout: Required only when Customize timeout is enabled. Set the time limit for a request to complete. The default is 30 seconds, and the maximum is 240 seconds.

7. Go to Set collection details and enter the following information:

   1. Collection name: Enter a descriptive name for the API collection.

   2. Version: Enter a unique version identifier (1–10 characters). Collections with the same name but different versions are treated as separate objects.

   3. Description (optional): Enter a short description of the API collection.

   The API collection is available only to members with access to the specified project.

   

   Figure: set collection details

8. Select Create collection. creates the collection and displays the number of endpoints added.

Policies

Policies control how clients use APIs. This helps prevent the overuse of an API by a single client, which could result in degraded performance for the community of API users. While an access policy is optional, if you do not create and associate an access policy with a client, then there is no API usage limits on the client.

Figure: Policies

To create a new Policy, perform the following steps:

1. Click Create New Policy. The Create New Policy page is created.

2. Enter all the mandatory details such as Name, Rate limit, and Usage quota. Click Create Policy.

   

   Figure: Create New Policy

3. The created policies are displayed in the orchestration page.

Clients

Clients help enforce security best practices by allowing you to create multiple clients with configurable access to each endpoint. Each API Client request requires a single authentication header.

1. Navigate to Integration Hub > API Collections.

2. Click the Settings tab and then select one of the following interfaces

   • API path prefix

   • Custom domain

   • Public access

   • Developer portal

   • API concurrency

API path prefix

An API path prefix is a unique identifier added to the URL of API endpoints to help organize and differentiate API calls within a system. It serves as a customizable prefix that ensures API endpoints are structured in a way that is specific to your account.

For example, if you set the prefix as aiw-demo, your API endpoint URL follows this format:

To configure API path prefix, perform the following steps:

To configure Developer portal, perform the following steps:

1. Enter the required details for Set up portal details such as the URL, portal logo, and brand color.  The preview of the portal details are displayed. Click Next.

   

   Figure: Set up portal details.

2. Set the collection from Select the API collections to publish to portal list. Click Next.

   

   Figure: Set up Developer portal

3. On clicking Next, the portal Make portal live is published.

API concurrency

API concurrency defines the number of requests your workspace can handle at the same time. It helps manage high volumes of API traffic by determining how incoming requests are processed when the concurrency limit is reached.

Figure: API concurrency

Configuring API Concurrency

To configure API concurrency settings, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to Integration Hu > API Collection > Settings in the Orchestrate platform, and select the API Concurrency tab.

2. Review the Concurrency limit. This value indicates the number of API requests your workspace can process concurrently. To increase this limit, contact your Customer Success Manager.

3. Choose how to handle requests that exceed the concurrency limit. By default, excess requests are queued.

   1. Queue requests: Select this option to queue incoming requests that surpass the concurrency limit. These requests are throttled and processed once current requests are completed.

   2. Reject requests: Select this option to reject new requests that exceed the concurrency limit immediately.

4. If you choose to queue requests, specify the Queue size. This value defines the maximum number of requests that can be queued after reaching the concurrency limit. The allowed range is 1 to 100.

5. Click Save.