Allies Computing
About the Developer Portal
The new Postcoder admin area was launched in Summer 2023. The admin area was re-designed by the Allies Computing team from the ground up to provide a complete developer portal for the award-winning Postcoder API.
For developers, the admin area provides:
- Initial onboarding
- Developer quick start guide
- API usage reports
- Access to all API features including comprehensive documentation
- The ability to top up credits and manage payment plans
- Tools for carrying out address lookup, mobile validation, email address validation etc. within the admin area.
The admin area is also used by API resellers, who (in addition to the above) are able to view the usage of their own client accounts, and administrate invoices, payments and reporting. The Allies Computing team also uses the admin area for reporting, client administration, and email management.
Why They Stand Out
Onboarding and ease of use
The Postcoder onboarding experience begins with a series of micro-videos to familiarise new users with the layout of the admin area, directing them to popular tools and features. From the admin area dashboard, users are invited to follow the quick start guide, a dedicated page in the Postcoder docs. The quick start guide provides developers with everything they need to know in order to add one or more Postcoder features to their website or app. There is sample code provided for each feature, and 200 free credits for testing. The quick start guide then prompts developers to review and adjust their API key security settings within the admin area, before buying credits and going live. Everything needed to go from trial to live is included within the admin area, meaning that developers can create a fully-functioning live solution with Postcoder quickly and easily without any intervention from the Allies Computing team (unless support is requested).
Postcoder was awarded Easiest Admin and Easiest to Use badges in the summer 2024 G2 awards, with users commenting on how easy it is to implement Postcoder, saying "any of our developers are able to pick this up and use it within our code base". In addition our customers enjoy the detailed documentation and the easy to follow dashboard and usage reports.
The analytics dashboard
The Postcoder admin area dashboard is designed so that users can easily access the most important information for them. The API key and credit balance is front and centre, along with a graph showing usage and a table documenting recent errors. It's easy to drill down into usage data through the dedicated tab, and customers can also manage payments, invoices and credits with full transparency and no hard sell.
Smoother workflows and improved CX
The new Postcoder admin area has also benefited the Allies Computing business model. By streamlining onboarding and the trial-to-live workflow, trial users can be converted to paying customers with minimal intervention from Sales and Support staff. In addition, API resellers who use Postcoder within their own software or solutions are better supported in terms of reporting and billing, which makes it less time consuming for the Allies Computing Accounts team to administer those users.
Dedication to continuous improvement
The Allies Computing team takes customer feedback seriously, and has made several updates based on customer feedback since the new admin area was launched. These include updates to reporting and sample code, and additions to global address data. Continuous improvement means customers are interviewed regularly, with their feedback used to inform future releases and upgrades.
