An Application Programming Interface (API) is a tool set that programmers can use to automate connections to data sources that are shared. The example demonstrated here is a fully automated link to a weather information provider.

It is self maintaining requiring no human intervention.

Many organisations use API connections to allow suppliers and customers to access information in an automated manner. For example, a business may wish to share stock availablity with customers. Instead of manually updating records by copying data from a spreadsheat (laborious, timeconsuming, error prone) an API enables background processes to read and update data with no effort or labour involved.

The data shared by API sources is secured, only registered and authorised users can access the information, and only the information that an organisation wishes to publish is made available.

NB:Note the use graphics to quick assessment of the data (this is far easier than viewing numbers). The Charting page provide more examples of possible presentation types.