Automation within Information Services Applications Team Delivers Efficiency Gains

Recent work within Information Services Applications has realised benefits by significantly reducing the amount of time required to release APIs (code used by developers to innovate and build further tools).

By utilising tools and technologies which partly automate the work involved in rolling out APIs the Development Services teams have managed to reduce the lead time prior to release from around five days to a matter of minutes.  The tools mean that the release process is significantly more straightforward and requires much less setting up and configuration to the point where releasing an API is almost a case of pushing a button.  The automation also ensures that the process is more reliable and less prone to errors.

Furthermore, multiple APIs can be released in parallel meaning that efficiency gains are further increased as more APIs are developed by the University.

The team demonstrated this new capability in a recent deployment of a microservices tool where several existing APIs were redeployed as part of the release.

Further Information on APIs Programme:

There is a need to transform the online experience of students, applicants, alumni, staff and other members of the University community to provide tailored information via personalised digital services.

To deliver these personalised digital services requires a way to plug into information from central systems and use it in new and innovative ways , like new websites, apps for mobile devices and what’s called ‘portlets’ for MyEd that operate like web pages within web pages.

Plugging into the information can be achieved by using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Here at the University we use open source tools for APIs – the type of code you can get from online communities where developers collaborate to make even better products and software.

While API technology has been around for a long time, its use beyond the integration of large, complex business systems has grown rapidly in recent years and with the proliferation of devices and mobile technology, API use in getting data from one place to another – from connecting business systems, to mobile devices and apps – has expanded exponentially.  That’s because APIs allow data to be accessed securely and consistently across multiple devices, a tremendously valuable resource for the University.

The University’s Enterprise APIs Programme (part of Digital Transformation) has been set up to deliver APIs to support projects like the User Centred Portal Pilot, the Service Excellence Programme and other digitalisation and transformation Programmes across the University.  In addition to enhancing central services such as MyEd, APIs will provide a consistent way for software developers across the University to build flexible systems at a lower cost, securely, and consistently across multiple systems.

Further Links:

Digital Transformation Website

API Technology Roadmap