Application Programming Interfaces. How do they work?
Application Programming Interfaces are a Service provided by Apps like Saasu that allows you to create, read, update or delete data programatically or by connecting it to another App. This is done by sending requests in a programming language called XML (The format) via HTTP on the Internet (The Medium)
As a Saasu customer you are the Client, the Service Consumer.
The Service Provider is called the Server. In this case it’s Saasu providing the API.
You as a business owner might want to program a way to pick up a List of Invoices from Saasu’s API. You could write some XML code to send to Saasu’s API asking for a List of Invoices. This is called a Get Request. e.g. “Get Invoice List”
Based on the XML Saasu receives in this request we provide back the RESPONSE as data formatted in XML.
API’s are also used in an App to App way. As an example when you use Stripe in Saasu for receiving credit card payments from your customers then Saasu is connecting to Stripes API to process credit cards securely without needing to share credit card details (as Stripe stores them).