Should we allow modification of EULA?

In CA API Developer Portal, when an API consumer wants to subscribe to a published API, he/she has to accept the EULA (End-User License Agreement). I believe this is the same for all other products out there.

So a customer of mine asked me the other day why he is not able to edit the default EULA that comes with the portal installation. Note: these are random texts (as shown below) and customer wants to go-live, thus he needs to modify the EULA proper.

He also created a new EULA and tried to change the default EULA to this new one. But he was not allowed to do so.

Bug with the product? No.

We found out that he has already created applications and assigned some APIs to these applications. Now, when a consumer adds an API to his/her application, he will be prompted to accept the Terms and Conditions as stipulated in the EULA.

Once accepted, from an audit point of view, this particular EULA shall not be changed by another party. As such, CA API Developer Portal implements this "disabled" function.

I think this is a great feature. It covers the benefits of both parties - API Publishers and API Consumers.

I have seen other software vendor asking customers to sign a paper-form EULA. But within the EULA, it points to a hyperlink with more terms and conditions. In one case, a contract was signed in year 2016. In Sep 2017, customer went to the site and realized the terms and conditions had been updated (latest modified date was May 2017) without notice.

This is bad practice!


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API Design & Implementation Tips

I was attending CA Partner Momentum held in Singapore this week. We had John flying in from Australia to conduct the event for us.

Some tips from John which I think are useful for field staff like us.

1. Recommend agile approach 
2. Collaborate with customer - get 1 dedicated person from customer's side to work 
3. Minimum viable product 
4. Select a simple API 
5. Generate test case first (POSTman) 
6. Use Gateway to emulate backend 
7. Share test cases with client as early as possible 
8. Show progress against test cases 
9. It's ok for customer to change their mind (embrace change - but ask for something in return) 
10. Leverage API Academy for questions around strategy

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CA API Developer Portal Sign Up Form - Organization Name missing!

A customer of mine wanted to add Organization Name (make it mandatory also) to the Sign Up form. Just a few days prior to meeting with him, I was playing around with CA API Developer Portal. I do remember that Organization Name is actually available, but it was displayed as Title on the Sign Up form.

I confirmed via the admin console.

The issue is with the naming “Title”. It should be “Organization Name”. The UI should display Field Name, instead of Field ID. This could be a bug with the product.

This field can also be made mandatory by clicking on “Make this field required?”. I tested and it works in my labs.

With regard to the "bug", CA Support came back with a solution. 

Navigate to /xml_content/phrasepacks/v3. Edit dashboard-display.xml.

*** look out for title and description keys and make changes there.

*** make sure you are in common form phrases section 

Done!

Now, customer also asked how he can rename the wordings "I accept the disclaimer".

It's actually residing in the same XML under the tag "AcceptedDisclaimer". 

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