Postman is a popular tool used to test and develop RESTful (Representational State Transfer) web service APIs. It can be very valuable in the context of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as the need arises to explore and test the OOTB web services provided. These OOTB web services are the primary mechanism for communicating with the platform to develop custom 3DDashboard widgets or integrations/connectors.

One initially confusing aspect of dealing with platform web services is understanding how to properly authenticate via the CAS server, and how to properly set up each HTTP request.

Attached to this post is a template, along with an environment that can be used in Postman, to help accelerate this process of understanding and exploring the platform web services. An example of authentication and handling of the session is included along with several OOTB web service examples (search for Engineering Item, set Part Number, create Document, etc.). The templates can be used with both cloud and on-premise environments.

For additional information and installation instructions related to Postman, you can visit the official documentation page: https://learning.postman.com/docs/getting-started/introduction/

For additional information related to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform web services: https://media.3ds.com/support/documentation/developer/R2021x/en/DSDoc.htm?show=CAAiamREST/CAATciamRESTToc.htm

To import the attached template and environment, perform the following steps:

Unzip postman-scripts.zip

From the top toolbar select Import

Drag and Drop template file (Cloud REST Services Examples (Non CLM).postman_collection.json) and environment file (Cloud REST Services Examples.postman_environment.json) into dialog

Click Import

Set environment from pulldown and setup variables used.  Only those highlighted are required as the others will be set via the Postman requests programmatically.  The tenant is optional and only required if connecting to a cloud environment.

To execute the test requests:

Login using the Get Login Ticket and CAS Service Login requests.  The session will be stored in a cookie automatically by Postman

Run the Get CSRF request if you will be performing an operation that modifies data in the platform.  Most POST, PUT, DELETE, and PATCH web services will require this to be run

Execute any of the OOTB platform web service requests

Tips and Tricks ​​​​​​​