Since sharing our 2016 roadmap with you last month, we’ve been eager to introduce some of the improvements we’re making to the API integration experience for developers. For our current API customers, we want to streamline and enhance the API without requiring major changes that might interrupt their workflow. Meanwhile, we want to make it easier for new API customers to integrate Enom domains and services into their apps without having to learn the entire API catalogue back to front. To reach both of these audiences, we’re happy to announce the first detailed component of our 2016 roadmap: Enom’s new developer hub, coming in early June.

We’re set to massively improve the developer experience with features like API tokens—which we’ll be introducing soon in another post—that will bring our API in line with more modern expectations. But we also know that the best product features are still only as good as our customers’ ability to use them. Providing developers with comprehensive information is key, yet we are long past the time when simply providing a monolithic PDF will be sufficient. It’s time to empower developers with practical tools for the present day.

Documentation by ReadMe.io

The first part of this change means offering cleaner, more robust documentation. We’re happy to announce that we’re implementing the ReadMe.io platform to do just that. ReadMe will offer API developers a collaborative support experience with an intuitive UI, drilling down to specific answers without wading through the entirety of our catalogue of API commands. Ultimately, we want to create a living, breathing document that adapts to the changing needs of the modern API developer.

Aside from the documentation we provide, ReadMe.io supports collaboration among thriving developer communities used by major platforms like Mozilla, Box, and Yammer. While Enom’s dedicated customer and technical support teams are always ready to help, we also understand that sometimes, the quickest, most relevant advice will come from your peers. Whether you’re looking for detailed, step-by-step integration help, or want a succinct, self-service approach, the new developer hub will be a source for the best of both worlds.

Safe testing environments

We aren’t just stopping at documentation, though. Contemporary development involves much more prototyping and “playing around” than it used to. Integrating with our API is no different. The second piece of our developer hub update will use Postman, a platform that offers a safe environment to explore and test our APIs. Postman saves developers the worry by offering a secure sandbox to identify and preempt any potential snags before implementing the API on a live system.

Development teams from companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Verizon, and eBay use Postman to collaborate and share collections, document their process, and ultimately deliver stable APIs. We think this will be an invaluable tool for both new and existing API developers on the Enom platform as we roll out the rest of the changes on our roadmap this year.

We understand that the developer experience and the customer experience are not one in the same. Throughout the year, we’re going to focus on turning that belief into concrete features to modernize the process of integration for API developers. An effective, flexible documentation and testing solution is absolutely necessary to make that happen, which is why we’re so excited to be introducing this API developer hub to you. Keep an eye out for these changes in early June along with the introduction to API tokens.