Setting up Postman API Monitoring

Have you ever wondered how to run your Postman scripts automatically, or even set a schedule for when to execute them? Well, we’ve got you covered!

Uptrends offers the Postman API monitor to directly run your existing Postman workspace collections on the Uptrends checkpoint network. You can easily check and test the performance of your APIs and set this up just like any of your other monitors.

With millions of users, Postman is a standard industry tool developers use to write, document, and perform API tests. With this tool, you can test HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH), add headers, parameters, variables, and many more. You can also group and organize multiple requests, called Postman collections, and share them with others or for later use. Simply go to the Postman interface, and you can now run your API scripts with a push of a button every time you need to test your APIs.

With Uptrends, you don’t necessarily need to go to Postman and do a manual push of a button to test your scripts every now and then, your Postman API monitor does the work for you. This monitor takes your Postman collection of API scripts, including pre- and post-request scripts, import them using an API URL or from a JSON file, then start running them across the globe similar to other monitor types.

Benefits of using Postman API monitor

If your organization is already using Postman, use this monitor to your advantage with these benefits in mind;

• Automatic execution of your scripts: You can execute your Postman scripts every minute, 5 minutes, hour, and anywhere in the world instead of having to run them manually. We have more than 200 monitoring checkpoints you can select and test with.

• No startup time: Just by importing your available and existing scripts in Uptrends, you can literally make this monitor up and running. There is no need to convert them into a special Uptrends flavor or make any other adjustments.

• Nothing new to learn: With your background in Postman, you’ll find it easy to use this monitor. Just point us to your Postman scripts and we will get you the results in no time.

• No changes in your current workflow: You can just continue maintaining your scripts in Postman. Keep in mind that whenever you make changes in your collection, simply retrieve it again in Uptrends and you’re up to date.

Creating a Postman API monitor

There are two ways on how you can create the Postman API Monitor. The first method is through importing your Postman API collection URL and the other is by importing a JSON file.

Importing your JSON files might be your go-to option to simultaneously backup files and get your changes from Postman to Uptrends, but setting up an API URL might also be a practical choice for you to do live testing. With just one click, it updates your collection and saves you some memory space too.

Freely choose whichever works for you! Here are the step-by-step instructions for each option;

Option 1: Import using an API URL

To create a monitor via the Postman collection API URL;

1. Go to API > API monitors setup (+).
2. Select the Postman API option.
3. Just like any other monitors, you can now customize your settings in the Main tab;

• Set your desired name for your Postman API monitor.
• Choose how often you want to check your monitor in minutes.
• Customize other fields based on your preference.

4. Under the Postman collection tab, click
   Import using an API URL option and paste the Postman API URL in the blank text field. To find the API URL, do the following steps in your Postman User Interface (UI);

• Go to Postman and hover over your chosen collection.
• Click on the three dots icon and choose the Share option.
• In the popup menu, click on the Via API tab.
• Click the Generate New Key button to create a Collection Access Key which is https:// api.postman.com/… {collection id and key}.
• Copy the Postman API URL and paste it on the Uptrends Postman API URL text field.

5. Once done, go to your Uptrends Postman API monitor editor. Click the RETRIEVE COLLECTION button to fetch the data from your URL. Once successful, the Collection details section will be populated with information on all the requests in your Postman collection. Details such as the Collection name, ID, and requests are now visible.

6. Adjust other monitor settings such as checkpoints, maintenance periods, member of, permissions, and others as you wish.
7. Click Save at the bottom left of the screen to confirm changes.

You’re all set with your monitor via Postman collection API URL!

Option 2: Import from a JSON file

To create a monitor via importing a JSON file;

1. Go to API > API monitors setup (+).
2. Select the Postman API option.
3. Just like any other monitors, you can now customize your settings in the Main tab;

• Set your desired name for your Postman API monitor.
• Choose how often you want to check your monitor in minutes.
• Customize other fields based on your preference.

4. Under the Postman collection tab, click
   Import from a JSON file option.

• To export a JSON file from Postman, go to your Postman User Interface (UI) and hover over your chosen collection.
• Click the Export option to download your JSON file in your computer.

5. Once done, go to your Uptrends Postman API monitor editor, click the Choose File button and import your JSON file. Once the file is successfully attached, its name will show up.

6. Instantly, the Collection details section will be auto-populated with the same information reflected in Postman. Details such as the Collection name, ID, and requests are now visible.

7. Adjust other monitor settings such as checkpoints, maintenance periods, member of, permissions, and others as you wish.

8. Click Save at the bottom left of the screen to confirm changes.

You’re all set with your monitor via JSON file import!

Monitor results

The Postman API monitor test results looks very similar to the Multi-step API monitoring results. In the Check details section, each step mirrors each request contained in the Postman collection with specific items shown below;

• Step duration: the time in milliseconds of how long a step runs
• Step assertions: the actual test results based on your pre-request and post-response scripts parallel to Postman test results. You can see the total count of passed and failed assertions wherein passed results are marked as green checkmarks, while failed results are marked as red cross-mark icon.
• We also show other details such as Request headers, request content and response headers in the same manner as it is in Postman. For example, Cache-control, Content-Length, Server, Date, and others.

Credits

Just like Multi-step API monitors, the Postman API monitor uses API credits. Each request contained in the collection you import uses one credit.