Veteran developers have a checklist for grading their top up software.
They know that when it comes to integrating a high-performance mobile airtime toolkit, there are qualities that just can’t be cut out.
Their ideal top up software must:
- Integrate with only a few lines of code
- Connect to all airtime service variables through one endpoint
- Come with API documentation for preventing errors
- Use indices to reduce query time
- Ensure short TTL for development and implementation
If one of the items on this checklist is omitted, then the top up software the developer is running is at risk of slow, error-prone performance. Unfortunately, a lot of top up software on the market today does not check off all of these items, which means the industry is settling for toolkits that are below the best-in-practice benchmark.
The results are common failures that make developers cringe.
This includes:
- Needlessly complex mathematical integrations that cause confusion
- Excessive time for adding communications variables
- Lack of API documentation (and thus lack of coding examples)
- Expensive queries that slow down experience
- Long TTL because more time is spent on coding
Reloadly’s founders intimately experienced this trend of below-average top up software and were inspired to launch the Reloadly cloud platform. Upon launch, Reloadly became the world’s first developer toolkit dedicated to airtime top ups.
Having spoken with veteran telecom industry developers for over a decade, Reloadly’s team quickly ascertained that there was a checklist that needed to be addressed.
The result was a top up developer toolkit that includes extensive API documentation, an SDK, widget and a growing library of customized GitHub applications.
In essence, Reloadly was made by developers for developers to directly tackle the most critical issues of the top up software industry today.
In this article, we’ll review each one of the cringeworthy issues that airtime developers have had to deal with and explain how Reloadly’s top up software resolves them.
[Tired of working with error-prone airtime APIs? Set up a call with one of our support team members and learn exactly what makes our airtime API technology the preferred choice of veteran developers.]
1. Replace complex integrations with just a few lines of code
It is every developer’s dream to cut out needless complexity from coding.
This is why a popular advantage of using a REST-based airtime API is its ability to rapidly integrate without jumping through complex mathematical hoops.
The airtime API that Reloadly provides allows real-time platforms to interconnect with just a few lines of code.
For companies, this saves lots of time and money during development. Developers do not have to invent a new technology or method, and can forget having to develop a set of wrappers for custom communication layers as well.
For Matthew Encke, Director of Development at AmeriMex Solutions, a telecom minutes and top up solution provider, the few lines of code needed to integrate Reloadly’s API marked a big difference from previous experience with other providers.
“In contrast, most of the real-time recharge providers have complex mathematical routines which are implemented in a worse manner than the actual system, causing unneeded confusion,” says Encke.
This complexity isn’t just a hassle, it also degrades the performance you provide to customers.
“Instead of requiring a server to maintain a live connection with continual pings to remote servers, reviewing and updating the local elements until the transaction is ‘finished’,” says Encke, “it is timing out, cause error scripts, and occupying vital CPU space and internet traffic for what should be (and with Reloadly, is) a one-function request.”
2. Avoid excessive development with a single top up endpoint
Developers favor software with pre-installed standards.
Today, most top up software systems use OAuth and JSON requests and responses, which allows developers to save vital development time. The software becomes more valuable to more that your team is able to use the system out of the box.
While most airtime API providers offer these basic credentials, Reloadly makes all of this information instantly available through a single endpoint on our airtime cloud platform. This affords developers the speed to quickly interact with real-time websites or mobile applications, saving communication time and preventing errors.
“The simplicity of the Reloadly top ups endpoint is only what it should be: the sender, destinations, mobile operator, and value,” says Encke of AmeriMex.
“This prevents us from adding an excessive amount of overhead and variables which are only used by one specific provider, further convoluting the processes.”
3. Prevent errors with extensive API documentation
API documentation is a developer’s roadmap.
Without a clear roadmap, your team is as good as lost.
Providing an extensive, multilingual library for top up software developers is now no longer a luxury, but a necessity for ensuring that airtime top up services are free of errors.
Reloadly provides the world’s first dedicated airtime toolkit, including our API, SDK and widget. To help developers build with these tools, we also created one of the largest airtime libraries in the industry — including extensive examples, real usage code snippets, complete definitions of each variable, and much more.
“The Reloadly library of API Documentation allows us to skip a large number of possible programming errors and issues,” says Encke of AmeriMex.
“The examples on Postman were also of great assistance to quickly load into our local development platforms.”
4. Avoid lag time with airtime indices
Top up software today is prone to lag due to heavy lifting systems.
Well-built top up software, however, will cut down lags by using indices. These indices speed up the processes for collecting mobile operator IDs, separating country codes from phone numbers, assigning top up value and other tasks that would otherwise slow down the system.
Instead, the usage of indices in Reloadly top up software replies using hash tables, which do not waste resources in relational or look-up queries. Essentially, the heavy lifting is done by the actual process of triggering a top up transaction.
“This is very unique as while it is an extra step to prepare the data, it allows the system to bypass expensive queries which slow down the entire experience,” says Encke.
5. Cut long TTL to focus more on your product
Development of airtime top up tools is key, but this is only part of the battle.
A best-in-class top up software toolkit will provide your development team with the capabilities to flatten the development curve and launch the service quickly, so that they can then focus on other crucial tasks — this includes internal product development.
When combined, Reloadly’s few lines of code for integration, single top up endpoint, usage of telecom indices and API documentation makes for an amazingly short TTL (time to live) experience. Ultimately, this reduces errors, development time, and cost for your company.
“This should be an appealing factor to any developer whose goal is to finish the project in a timely manner whilst completing the task correctly,” says Encke at AmeriMex.
“Using proven, open-sourced, and easily usable standards, developers do not need to reinvent the wheel with every line of code and can focus on the internal development of products and income streams instead of worrying about the coding of the platform.”
Furthermore, a reactive technical support team means that, when developers do hit a snag, they can depend on Reloadly to quickly address it.
“Using the excellent support team Reloadly has is an amazing additional benefit for developers with simple or complex questions providing assistance through the documentation but also in a very personal manner,” adds Encke.
[Looking to integrate a high-performing airtime API? Set up a call with one of our support team members today and ask all the questions you want.]
Final thoughts
Developers know what they do not like about top up software today.
But in that vein, they also can easily understand what it is that makes a great piece of software.
Reloadly provides extensive API documentation to solve common and complex integration problems.
Looking to get really innovative with your project? We recently wrote about 5 ways businesses can build an international top up service using our developer toolkit.
We also update our blog with related resources for developers that also include insightful stories of how companies are creating innovative top up services with our software.
