Find and Use an API - Management Portal

Viewing your workspace

You can view your workspace by following these steps:

Select the My workspaces link from the top navigation menu or the task link options within the body of the Home page. This will show you the My workspaces page with listings of your workspaces.
Select the Name the of the workspace you want to view from the list of your workspaces. This will show you the workspace detail including any APIs within the workspace. This page is divided into two sections based on the tasks of configuration or reporting:

Configuration has the following options:
- Overview
- Members
- Backends
- Named values
- Automation
Reporting has the following option:
- Audit log

Overview

The workspace Overview page will have details including:

workspace name
workspace description
status (Workspace status)
notification email
Add an API link that allows you to add an API to the workspace
List of added APIs with details including the API's name, type (Host or Linked), major version number, visibility (Public, Across government services, Across department services or Across service boundaries) and status (Published or Draft).

There is a Change workspace detail link to the right of workspace detail section header that allows you to change workspace details including workspace name, description and email address to which notifications are sent.

Members

These are users that have been invited to collaborate within your workspace. Members are also given workspace roles. By default, when your workspace is initially approved and created, it will have only a single member (you, who requested the workspace) in the workspace owners role.

Backends

This is a way to share backend URLs and authentications or authorization between different APIs.

An example is if you had two APIs that use the same web server, you can have authorisation details store once and have the other server use it. That means you got credential or tokens such as the secret key in a single place such as in a named value and have other servers use it. This save you from creating several special policies with the secret key details within those policies to handle authorization. You just share it and have any any API within that workspace use the backend through the Backend URL detail.

And if you have multiple backends, you can create a pool of those backends by adding more than one backend and then you set weights and priorities to load balance between them. The limit is set to 32 backends that can be pooled.

You can use this backend URL on every single environment or have different beckend URL for different environments. And they can all share and use the Name values for their keys. This just prevent users from having to put those authorization detail in policy. It's all just a way to stop users having to put a policy or repeated in several policies - having duplicate code and secret keys all the place. This feature keep everything nice and tidy.

To configure the Backend key which is the way it used to happen and where it was the way they a lot of people are doing it in the old system.

Named Values

These are used by API policies. They are useful for creating shared variables including email address and secret keys that can be reused across your APIs within a workspace.

Automation

Find and Use an API has a 'platform API' which allows you to automate maintenance of elements within your workspace through a public API, secured using an automation token. The Automation page contains an Add link that allows you to add an automation token with details including:

Name - The name of your automation token, if given one at the time of generation.
Enabled - The status of your automation token. Set to Yes, if enabled, and No if disabled.
Date generated - The date and timestamp when your automation token was generated.
Action - The action that can be performed on your added automation token. A View link to view your token and a Delete link to delete your token.

The Platform API is currently under construction and further documentation on it's use will be available soon

Audit Logs

Audit logs provide a record of internal activities within your workspace. It forms part of the reporting functionality within workspaces and used to track system operations and user actions for compliance, security, and risk management.

Transfering ownership of your workspace

You can transfer ownership of your workspace to another member by following these steps:

Select the My workspaces link from the top navigation menu or the task link options within the body of the Home page. This will show the My workspaces page with your workspace listings.
Select the Name of the workspace you want to transfer ownership to another member from the workspace list. This will show you the workspace details page with a few left side menu options.
Select the Members left side menu options. This will show you a list of workspace roles you can add the user including Workspace owners.
Select the Add users to workspace role link for the Workspace owners role from the workspace role list. This will show the Add user form with the Workspace role already selected.
Enter the email address of the user you want to transfer workspace ownership to.
Select the Add user to role button to add that user as an owner or Return to workspace members link to cancel. Once that user has been added as a member of the workspace owner role, you can then remove yourself from the workspace owner role.

Only users with the Workspace owners role and displayed within the Workspace owners list can add or remove members from a workspace or transfer ownership. Additionally, you can only transfer ownership of a workspace to a user with valid DfE (@education.gov.uk) email address.

Changing your workspace details

You can edit and change your workspace details include the name, description or notification email address by following these steps:

Select the My workspaces link from the top navigation menu or the task link options within the body of the Home page. This show you the My workspaces page with list of your workspaces and details including:

Name
Status
Description

Select the Name of the active workspace you want to edit details. This will show you the Change workspace details page for the workspace with detail including:

Workspace name
Description
Notification email

Edit the relevant details as required including changing the workspace name, description, or notification email.
Select the Save changes button to update the workspace details. Or the Return to workspace overview link to cancel.

Changing your workspace notification email