Postman is a popular tool worldwide for making API (Application Programming Interface) Requests to testing them, before releasing them to the public. CRUD (Create-Read-Update-Delete) REST (REpresentational State Transfer) APIs of a simple application to manage the basic data of users of a company will be created. Then, on the basis of similarity to one another, they will be grouped into collections for convenient record-keeping. This article details how to create and manage API request collections on the free version of Postman.

How To Create request collections

Step 1: Click “+” button at top-left to create a new request collection

Step 2: Click “+” button inside collection to create and add a new API request.

Step 3: (Optional) You can customize the API name by right-clicking and selecting Rename.

Step 4: Hit the API and save it for saving it to the collection.

How To Manage request collections

There are 21 things that can be done with an API request collection. All these options come in a menu, on right clicking the collection name.

Rename collection

• Allows to rename the collection.
• Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl + E

Rename Collection

Share

Allows a range of options to share the collection to other people and to external teams, with the added facility for custom setting of the environment, workspace or through a Postman-generated key (meaning a publicly accessible custom URL, on clicking which the viewer can gain read-only access to the collection).

Share Collection

Move

Allows to move the collection from one workspace to another on Postman.

Move Collection

Run Collection

Allows execution of the collection with the features of choosing:

• the order of execution of the API’s in it.
• the mode of execution – manual, scheduled or automatic.
• execution configuration, custom setting the number of execution times and time delay (if any).
• simulate real-world traffic to test the collection practically.

Run Collection

Generate Tests

Allows user to specify their requirements, for Postman to accordingly generate tests for hands-on testing of every single API in the collection before their cumulative execution. This is done by using Postbot, the AI chatbot assistant of Postman.

Generate Tests

Edit

Allows editing of the description, authorization type, pre-request and post-response scripts using JavaScript, variables to store reused values and for protecting sensitive data, and for performance, functional & scheduled runs.

Edit Collection

Add Request

Allows to add multiple new API requests to the collection, one at a time. By default, the request type is set to GET, which can be changed, along with everything else.

Add Request

Add Folder

Allows to create a new empty folder to store API requests. Helps to streamline and organize the APIs in the collection, particularly if the collection has 20+ API’s. Also, reduces the need for documentation while sharing the collection to external teams.

Add Folder

Monitor Collection

Creates a supervisory facility for the collection by setting the environment, optionally providing data files in JSON/CSV format for more efficiency, setting the frequency of running the monitor to periodically check the health of the collection.

Monitor Collection

Mock Collection

Sets up a mock server for the collection, by configuring the environment, simulated fixed network delay time duration, public / private accessibility.

Mock Server

View changelog

Shows the local version history of all the changes made in the collection.

View Changelog

View Documentation

Shows the description of the collection, each API request’s URL and response in XML format.

View Documentation

Duplicate

• Creates a copy of the current instance of the collection. Helpful for making changes to a non-important branch of the collection, testing if it satisfies all the requirements, and then finally integrating those changes into the main collection. This concept is similar to the main and local branches of a repository on GitHub.
• Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl + D

Duplicate

Export

Postman allows custom-exports of the collection to outside the application.

Delete

Deletes the collection from Postman.

Delete

External Version Control integration features

On integrating Postman with an external version control system, say GitHub, Postman can create a fork or a pull request, merge changes, pull changes.

Version Control Integration Features

FAQ’s

Does Postman allow to star a collection?

Yes. Collections can be starred in Postman to be quickly found out in priority to non-starred collections in times of need.

What are the advantages of Postman?

Postman has multiple features available on its free edition for testing APIs before deploying them, making it a popular choice amongst students and working professionals.

Is it compulsory to integrate GitHub into Postman?

While integrating an external version control system like GitHub is beneficial for pull requests and more efficient external integrated tracking of changes, it’s not compulsory as Postman provides its changelog feature of showing locally the versions of the collection.