Postman is a popular tool worldwide for making API (Application Programming Interface) Requests to testing them, before releasing them to the public. CRUD (Create-Read-Update-Delete) REST (REpresentational State Transfer) APIs of a simple application to manage the basic data of users of a company will be created. Then, on the basis of similarity to one another, they will be grouped into collections for convenient record-keeping. This article details how to create and manage API request collections on the free version of Postman.
How To Create request collections
Step 1: Click "+" button at top-left to create a new request collection
Step 2: Click "+" button inside collection to create and add a new API request.
Step 3: (Optional) You can customize the API name by right-clicking and selecting Rename.
Step 4: Hit the API and save it for saving it to the collection.
How To Manage request collections
There are 21 things that can be done with an API request collection. All these options come in a menu, on right clicking the collection name.
Rename collection
- Allows to rename the collection.
- Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl + E
Share
Allows a range of options to share the collection to other people and to external teams, with the added facility for custom setting of the environment, workspace or through a Postman-generated key (meaning a publicly accessible custom URL, on clicking which the viewer can gain read-only access to the collection).
Move
Allows to move the collection from one workspace to another on Postman.
Run Collection
Allows execution of the collection with the features of choosing:
- the order of execution of the API's in it.
- the mode of execution - manual, scheduled or automatic.
- execution configuration, custom setting the number of execution times and time delay (if any).
- simulate real-world traffic to test the collection practically.
Generate Tests
Allows user to specify their requirements, for Postman to accordingly generate tests for hands-on testing of every single API in the collection before their cumulative execution. This is done by using Postbot, the AI chatbot assistant of Postman.
Edit
Allows editing of the description, authorization type, pre-request and post-response scripts using JavaScript, variables to store reused values and for protecting sensitive data, and for performance, functional & scheduled runs.
Add Request
Allows to add multiple new API requests to the collection, one at a time. By default, the request type is set to GET, which can be changed, along with everything else.
Add Folder
Allows to create a new empty folder to store API requests. Helps to streamline and organize the APIs in the collection, particularly if the collection has 20+ API's. Also, reduces the need for documentation while sharing the collection to external teams.
Monitor Collection
Creates a supervisory facility for the collection by setting the environment, optionally providing data files in JSON/CSV format for more efficiency, setting the frequency of running the monitor to periodically check the health of the collection.
Mock Collection
Sets up a mock server for the collection, by configuring the environment, simulated fixed network delay time duration, public / private accessibility.
View changelog
Shows the local version history of all the changes made in the collection.
View Documentation
Shows the description of the collection, each API request's URL and response in XML format.
Duplicate
- Creates a copy of the current instance of the collection. Helpful for making changes to a non-important branch of the collection, testing if it satisfies all the requirements, and then finally integrating those changes into the main collection. This concept is similar to the main and local branches of a repository on GitHub.
- Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl + D
Export
Postman allows custom-exports of the collection to outside the application.
Delete
Deletes the collection from Postman.
External Version Control integration features
On integrating Postman with an external version control system, say GitHub, Postman can create a fork or a pull request, merge changes, pull changes.
