API: Three Letters That Matter

Have you ever dreamed of receiving more value while doing less work? Definitely, everyone has. In tech sphere, for instance, it’s possible due to API. However, the fact is that for many people it’s something they’ve probably heard of, but never got in details what exactly it is or how it functions. Some people even confess that at first API sounded more like a name of an airline than a technical term.

It must be mentioned that a general purpose of APIs is identical for all spheres of human activities regardless of whether it’s medicine, law or telecommunication. Therefore, it’s worth taking a look at the core of what API is and what purpose it serves.

Application Programming Interface

First of all, APIs stands for Application Programming Interface. The definition states that it’s a set of predefined classes, procedures, functions, structures, and constants. Here, it is provided by the application (library, service) or operating system for use in external software products. Rather complicated to understand, isn’t it? Another definition is that it’s a set of subroutine definitions, protocols, and tools for building application software. Still confusing?

To make it easier to understand, let’s consider the following example: think of API as your secretary at work. You ask the assistant to get, for example, a bouquet of violets for your anniversary and wait till he fulfills the request. Then, you get a response, or, in our case, a delivered bouquet. Here, an API is the assistant who gets our request, looks for the best offer on the market, orders and delivers the response to us. The same situation with an actual API: it takes a request with what you want to do in a particular system, delivers your request to it, and gets back to you with a response. So, in layman’s terms, it is a set of rules or methods that allow one piece of software to communicate with another one.

JeraSoft’s API

Now, as we’ve got a general idea of what Application Programming Interface is, it’s time to focus on JeraSoft API. What can it offer to billing software users? To start things off, there are three types of API in JeraSoft’s billing system Core, Management, and Provisioning API. Depending on customer’s personal needs, he or she can pick one that suits best for carrying out companies’ tasks.  Now, let’s get into details.

Core API

Core API is a heart of JeraSoft API. The high-performance tool is called to receive requests from integrated 3rd party software and provide it with rapid responses. To illustrate how it works, consider the following. There is a company whose application is integrated with VCS via JeraSoft Core API, and company’s employee decides to create a new client.

client = coreapi.clients.create(
companies_id=67,
name=’Test Client’,
bill_by_time=’setup’,
currencies_id=1,
credit=100
)

the employee states that for the company under id #67 (which is presumably his company) he wants to create a new client with Test Client name and a credit of 100 units in a currency, specified under id #1 in the list of VCS currencies. In addition to high performance, JeraSoft Core API is characterized by its functional versatility, coupled with integration flexibility. More information about Core API capabilities can be found on our documentation portal.

Management API

Management API is the powerful mechanism that provides users with a possibility to accumulate, reclaim and edit date. Unlike Core API that contains only major APIs methods.  It possesses a full range of methods and allows to perform via API any action which is possible to execute through VCS web interface. Read more about the Management  API peculiarities.

Provisioning API

Provisioning API is an advanced piece of JeraSoft API that has quite a unique purpose. For Core API initiation source of interaction is external 3rd party application. Provisioning API focuses on responding to internal VCS processes and communication with integrated software. A detailed description of Provisioning API module and its functionality can also be found on our documentation portal.

Lastly, it’s important to understand that despite the fact APIs are not something brand new, the volume of positive effects they make on business is gigantic and undeniable. API allows making business more reliable, productive, accessible. It also helps to widen its boundaries that hardly to overestimate.