How Breeze leverages the API economy to deliver more value

By Mark on Jun 8

Lean, efficient best-in-class software technology

Many people are aware of the phenomenal success of the cloud and the way that Software as a Service (SaaS) applications have transformed the way businesses and consumers buy and use software over the Internet.

The old, ‘legacy’ way of buying a box with disks and some weighty user guides in it has ended. Also gone with it is the cost of buying the disks, the user guides and the fancy box. The cost of annual licensing for server and client software has also gone.

What we are left with is a lean and efficient way of getting best-in-class software technology. We pay monthly, or for what we use, and we are not locked into the software vendor and can walk away in 30 days.

The rise of the mighty API

In parallel with the rising tide of cloud apps, the use of the Application Programming Interface (API) has led to the development of what is called the API economy. This could be the biggest tech sector most people haven’t heard of.

Since it was founded in 2005, ProgrammableWeb has charted the daily evolution of all things API while amassing the internet’s most relied-on directory for search and discovery of APIs for use in web and mobile applications.

Over the first 6 years up to 2012, the number of APIs in the directory grew to around 4,500. The last 6 years have seen the use of this technique mushroom, with the API numbers in the directory swelling to some 20,000.

The vast scale of the API economy

API-based business activity has created its own economy – the API economy. The basis for the API economy is simply the exchange of value between service providers and consumers through APIs.

Two cloud software applications or platforms are simply connected through an API to enable the fetching of a specific piece or pieces of data. A secure API call requests the data. This is combined with other or simply displayed in the application that requests the information to deliver value in some form to end users.

Here’s an easy example. Google provides Google Maps as a product which any company can plug into its applications without having to build its own global mapping system. This exchange of value repeated over the entire software services market is what goes to make up the API economy.

Throughout 2018, the proliferation and increasing use of APIs is expected to generate revenues of $2.2 trillion. It’s a big part of some of the internet’s biggest businesses. In 2016 Salesforce.com generated 50% of its revenue; Expedia generated $9bn; and Google had 5bn transactions per day, all through automated API interactions.

Great value from the Breeze API

Of course, to help make sure that Breeze delivers as much value as possible, we incorporated an API from the outset. There’s no point in trying build in lots of other capabilities and functions that other cloud apps already do really well.

So, we put all our effort into doing what we do best. With Breeze you get great project management in the cloud and we plugin other really useful apps via the API.

We let organizations access the API to enable them to power their own application development projects. This means Breeze customers or other web apps companies can integrate with Breeze to add value to what they do.

Time tracking, managing support tickets and team chat

There are a whole bunch of integrations that use The Breeze API. The API lets you integrate your favorite tools with Breeze. Favorites include time tracking, billing, accounting and reporting. Here are some highlights…

• Toggl - a simple online time tracking tool that lets users track the time they spend on projects. It’s up and running in less than a minute. Use Toggl in the browser, as a desktop widget or on mobile – it all gets synced in real time.

• Harvest - a web-based time tracking tool, it offers tracking and time-based reporting as well as different stuff to Toggl, like invoicing and expense tracking. You get to send automated payment reminders from the software when clients haven't paid an invoice on time…

• Groove - simple help desk software that lets you see Breeze tasks inside Groove on the sidebar. Also, you can link Groove support tickets to Breeze tasks.

• Zendesk – a beautiful system for tracking, prioritizing, and solving customer support tickets. See Breeze tasks inside Zendesk and create Breeze tasks from Zendesk tickets and link them to existing tasks.

• Slack - offers real time communication in the form of team chat with messaging, archiving and search tools for the way modern teams work. You can send Breeze activity to Slack and create tasks directly from Slack.

Get started with Breeze and grab a slice of that $2.2tr value!

Getting started with Breeze lets you grab a slice of that $2.2tr value! The API economy is another example of the democratizing effect of the internet. Whether you are a great big internet giant like Salesforce or a smaller high growth company like Breeze, you can share information securely and deliver value to customers with API connectivity.

Make Breeze a part of your team today. Try it free for 14 days. We don’t need to take your credit card. Let your team try it across all your computers or mobile devices with up to date browsers.

If you need support or want to find out how to do something, you can e-mail or tweet us to get more help from our team and all the tutorials you need are online.