Guideline For Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

Published 26/02/2023

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1. Introduction

Digital Government Authority works to enhance digital performance within government agencies, raise the quality of digital services provided and improve the service experience, in line with the strategic directions of the Digital Government Authority to apply international best practices in various fields related to digital government. The authority has prepared the "Guideline for Application Programming Interfaces" to increase the rate of adoption of APIs, which in turn contributes to accelerating digital transformation processes, , where APIs are one of the major widely adopted technical enablers in the technology sector.

The usage of APIs has been growing exponentially since several years. This includes both the number of provisioned APIs as well as the usage of APIs. Private sector has been at the center of increased attention and investments. Since 2014, public APIs have grown by around 50% across all industries (and notably in hi-tech, retail and healthcare). Government agencies are following suit as transaction volumes have grown. In KSA, Government Service Bus transactions have grown at almost 200% a year over the period 2009-2021. Hence, It is important that government agencies have the ability to understand and take advantage of the capabilities of APIs.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are major technology enablers widely adopted in the technology industry. Therefore, it is also important for government entities to have the ability to understand and take advantage of the capabilities of APIs.

This guide is one of the references that will contribute to promoting the adoption and use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in support of digital transformation activities in government sector. In addition, this guide is part of a series of guiding documents aimed at supporting and promoting digital excellence.

2. Guideline Objectives

This guideline aims to:

Raise awareness among specialists in government agencies in Effective implementation of API maximizing value of government services.

Enable government agencies to comprehensively understand API and its uses in government context.
Facilitate connectivity to internal and external data sources to ensure that it is easier to draw upon data easier.
Facilitate the integration across government agencies due to a unified interface technology.

3. Guideline Scope

The scope of API guideline is divided into 7 sections as follow:

API Background.
API Purpose.
API Use Cases.
API Requirements.
API Strategy.
API Strategy Adoption.
API Measurement.

4. Target Groups

This guideline targets experts, practitioners and technical staff working to develop digital platforms, products and services in government sector.

5. Guideline Statement

For more information; Check the digital version.

6. Table of Definitions

Term	Definition
DGA	Digital Government Authority.
Government Agencies	Ministries, authorities, public institutions, councils, national centers including any additional form of a public agency.
Digital Government	Supporting administrative, organizational and operational processes within and between government sectors to achieve digital transformation, develop, improve and enable easy and effective access to government information and services.
API	Set of commands, functions, objects and protocols developed to be used by programmers for developing software or interacting with other systems and/ or software.
Digital Transformation	Digitally and strategically transforming and developing business standards and models that would rely on data, technologies, and ICT.
API marketplace	A platform of the different APIs provided and consumed from different providers with the possibility to exchange information for how to integrate.
API Strategy	Overall definition of the roadmap and goals of the deployment of APIs in line with the business strategy.
Stakeholders	Parties and agencies that affect and are affected by decisions, directions, procedures, objectives, policies and initiatives of the digital government and share some of their interests and outputs and are affected by any change that occurs in them.
REST Framework	Framework for the interaction of APIs typically used to ensure easy adoption and exchange.
Release Train Engineers	Infrastructure experts being able to bridge the gap between current engineering and development teams and possible deployments on actual infrastructure/ servers.
APIs Portal	An API portal is a place where API consumers can go to access a agency’s APIs.
Microservice	A small amount of functionality that can be independently deployed and made available for the consumption by others.
DevOps	DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes. This speed enables organizations to better serve their customers and compete more effectively in the market.
Data Modelling	The process of building a conceptual representation of data and their relationships to be stored in a database.
Agile	A methodology in the software development process in which software is created and developed through collaborative efforts within a designated, cross-functional team.
Monolithic Architecture	A traditional model of a software program, which is built as a unified unit that is self-contained and independent from other applications.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)	A performance indicator or key performance indicator is a type of performance measurement. KPIs evaluate the success of an organization or of a particular activity in which it engages.

Abbreviation	Description
E2E	End-to-end
SRE	Site Reliability Engineering
UI	User Interface
API	Application Programmable Interface
DevOps	Software development methodology
GSB	Global Service Bus
CTO	Chief Technology Officer
BU	Business unit
REST	Representational state transfer
SOAP	Simple object access protocol
SCRUM	Agile software development methodology
GDPR	General Data protection regulation
KPI	Key performance indicator
G2G	Government to Government
G2C	Government to Consumer
G2B	Government to Business

Abbreviation	Description

Official government website of the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Links to official Saudi websites end withgov.sa

Government websites use the HTTPS protocol for encryption and security.

Guideline For Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

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