Partner Workspaces reduced API activation time from 3 weeks to 5 days for Canopy

Initially, Postman was used for building collections and general workflows. One of the early challenges was the nearly non-existent API documentation. Developers had to investigate the code to understand which API to hit. Sparse documentation existed in Google Sheets and Notion pages.

Internally, Postman was the go-to API platform for its collaboration capabilities and intuitive nature. The efficiency gains made through Postman expedited processes and facilitated seamless client interactions. It became clear that Postman should be used externally by clients to mirror the same benefits experienced internally.

Simultaneously, Canopy scaled operations with two new teams, Client Delivery and Sales Engineering. Postman was the solution to maximizing the teams ability to be a revenue-creating engine.

By upgrading to the Postman Enterprise plan, Canopy deployed Partner Workspaces. With workspaces, Canopy could reduce the ambiguity clients experience in understanding the product. Client comprehension has been enhanced with the provision of API documentation using Postman.

Partner Workspaces addressed a key challenge: ensuring client outcomes matched expectations. With complex systems, it is critical that clients understand the product to ensure adherence to best practices, and any assumptions made by the Canopy teams are understood.

“Partner Workspaces are invaluable to Canopy. It's been an exciting time for us, as we are continually delighted by Postman, especially since moving to the Enterprise plan.”

Anurag Angara, Head of Product, Canopy Servicing

Through workspaces, both Canopy and its clients are aligned in the same space. As clients innovate with context-specific features, Canopy can provide guidance to optimize products. The quality of product releases has been enhanced.

In workspaces, for example, a payment reversal workflow can be forked and a slight variation constructed. With Postman, all the scripts remain attached to the forked collection in the new workspace, where changes can be made for a different use case.

Clients are consistently adding new features and changing parameters for products. Forking collections allows clients to create a collection for each specific change.

Postman's pre-request and post-request scripts are used for testing and managing environment variables. Newman is being used to automate the testing of product simulations. With Postman, Canopy has new testing frameworks.

Postman is also used for QA spot checks, such as borrower lifecycle scenarios. For example, testing to see what happens with different balances or an old payment reversal.

Teams can now understand the API conceptually and contextualize different scenarios for each client. That, in turn, means high-quality code is incorporated into the code base and testing framework. The intuitive nature of Postman means that products meet the real needs of people.

For example, the Sales team can now create a realistic-looking product for prospects. They can also demonstrate use cases and showcase the product using the API.

Comprehensive API documentation, collections and workflows have expedited onboarding. There have been improvements in the time to first call, and a marked increase in the number of shared Partner Workspaces.

“Postman is a great platform that helps people interact with APIs in a way that makes sense. It has an intuitive approach to organizing API interactions.”

Anurag Angara, Head of Product, Canopy Servicing

Additionally, Partner Workspaces have reduced API activation time from 3 weeks to around 5 days. Collaboration between both internal and external teams has improved dramatically.

Workspaces have saved time by preventing the duplication of work with changes seen in real-time by everyone. This is particularly important for a geographically distributed workforce as Canopy is a remote-first organization.

The testing regime that Postman has enabled means errors are caught earlier than before. Being able to catch mistakes quickly saves both time and money by getting things right the first time.

Engagement levels have improved significantly with higher levels of activity against the API due to over 300,000 calculated being validated every month. This is reflected in the corresponding client conversations, now anchored in a deeper understanding of the product. Consequently, the sales cycles have also been shortened due to higher customer engagement and knowledge.

Moving forward, the Canopy teams continue to explore Postman features to further optimize client products.