Dan is Senior Technical Lead in our Integration Team. He leads on application development and adoption in several agile teams.
Some of the most transformational new technologies for the team are events and APIs.
APIs and events: tools for innovation and collaboration
At DWP Digital we continuously look for innovative ways to streamline our services, enable communication between our product teams, and improve our users’ experiences.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and events have emerged recently as powerful tools in changing the way we innovate and collaborate across teams. This is because they allow data to flow between our services.
We use them to change the way we share and use data by:
- making systems real time
- avoiding duplication of data
- reducing errors caused by data synchronisation
Ultimately, these technologies empower our customers with efficient, real-time access to the support they need. They are one way our teams ensure that services are accessible and user focused.
What are events and APIs?
Events are notifications that signal a change in a system or application. They allow components within the organisation to easily communicate with each other.
Events enable real-time updates, and are essential for building responsive, interconnected systems.
APIs are the bridge between different software applications and enable them to communicate and share data. APIs provide a standardised way for developers to access specific functionalities or data from other applications.
We use them to streamline our integration process and improve collaboration within the organisation.
API management serves as a vital framework to regulate, standardise, and enforce various policies. It is particularly useful in security and audit protocols, and helps you maintain consistency and reliability.
The benefits of events and APIs
Better collaboration
They help create transparency and collaboration between teams in an organisation. Real-time data sharing, through events, means stakeholders have access to the information they need.
APIs allow you to integrate different systems, connecting the teams who manage them in meaningful ways.
Scalability and flexibility
They allow you to produce components that are modular and scalable. As you develop new products, new components can be added and updated without disrupting existing systems.
This helps teams remain agile and can adapt to changing business needs or technological advances.
Accelerated innovation
Events and APIs empower developers to build on existing functionality at the same time as they develop new features and applications. There are faster innovation cycles, and products can be delivered faster.
For us, this means quickly delivering value for our users.
Data-driven insights
By capturing real-time data, you can gain valuable insights into user behaviour, trends, and system performance. Integrating data from multiple sources gives you a complete view of our organisation’s operations and allows you to make better decisions.
How we use events and APIs
Our strategy
One of our goals is to join our data up to improve customer experiences, create efficiencies, and enable us to share data with key partners. Events and APIs can help us do those things.
Remove duplication
All our teams publish their APIs and events when developing their services. This allows other teams to use that data and eliminates the need to obtain the data from users again.
Using the right tools
Choosing the appropriate event streaming and API management platforms is important. We need ours to be scalable, reliable, easy to use, and capable of integration. The tool needs to demonstrably support the business goal.
Enable collaboration
Collaboration is structured into to the way we develop and share events and APIs at DWP Digital. We provide training to our developers so they can understand how to create, use, and manage them.
Develop, learn, iterate
We continuously track the performance of our events and APIs, seek feedback from stakeholders and users, and identify iterative improvements. That gives us a constant process of identifying errors or inefficiencies and optimising performance.
Driving delivery through collaboration
Events and APIs are powerful tools for large organisations to enhance collaboration, scalability, and innovation. By adopting a strategic approach, organisations can use them to build a connected, agile environment that drives the pace of delivery across teams.
At DWP Digital we’re harnessing the transformational potential of events and APIs, and using them to reshape the way we operate, collaborate, and deliver. If you want to be part of that, sign up to our newsletter.