Person API Postman Collection
For more detailed exploration of this and other APIs, you might consider installing Postman .
Postman works like a browser for APIs. You can store authentication tokens so you don't need to copy and paste them, and you can save your queries for exporting or later editing.
Install Postman
Postman is a tool for exploring and testing APIs. It's available as a Chrome app, a native Mac app, and a native Windows app. You can use it to explore the Mock Person API and other APIs.
Create a Postman Collection
Postman uses collections to store queries. We'll create a collection to store our queries.
Take a look at the Postman documentation for more information about collections.
Download the Person API OpenAPI specification from the Person API documentation in the Developer Portal using the Download Spec button on the top right.
You can also copy the link from the Download Spec button and use it in Postman to import the specification.
In Postman, click the Import button in the Collections tab.
Next, drag and drop the specification file into the Import dialog if you downloaded the specification. Or, paste the link from the Download Spec button by right-clicking the Download spec button and selecting Copy Link .
Next, select Postman Collection Person API and click Import .
And we are done. You can now explore the Person API collection in Postman.
Create a Postman Environment
Postman uses environments to store variables. We'll create an environment to store our environment specific variables. We can create multiple environments for Production and Mock APIs as an example.
Take a look at the Postman documentation for a guide to create and manage environments.
We recommend creating the following environment variables:
When adding values to the variables, make sure to add them Current Value section. You can then select Persist all in the View more actions button to save the values to the environment.
The baseUrl variable should be set to https://api.wisc.edu/ or https://mock.api.wisc.edu in case you want to use the mock API.
The clientId and clientSecret variables should be set to the values you received when you registered your application in the Developer Portal .
The oauthUrl variable should be set to https://api.wisc.edu/oauth/token for both Production and Mock API.
Make sure you save your changes to the environment.
You can now select this environment as your active environment in Postman in the environment drop down on the right hand side.
Authorization
Now that we have created a Postman Collection and a Postman Environment we can link the two together and start making calls to the API.
The Person API uses OAuth 2.0 for authorization. You can read more about OAuth 2.0 in the Developer Portal .
In the Collections tab, click on the Person API collection and select the Authorization tab.
Select OAuth 2.0 from the Type dropdown.
Select Request Headers from the Add authorization data to dropdown.
The Header Prefix should be set to Bearer .
In the Configure New Token dialog, enter the following values:
Click Get New Access Token , Proceed , Use Token to continue. The MANAGE ACCESS TOKEN will provide you more details about the token and the response from the Oauth Server.
This token will expire after 1 hour. When it expires, simply get a new token following the same process.
You are all set! You can now navigate the Person API collection and make calls to the API.
NOTE: You might have to update the default requests that have been imported.