Baby, It’s Code Inside

It’s mid-November and the annual barrage of Christmas music has started. And, if you’re like me, you probably have a favorite Christmas album you listen to each year (my personal favorite is Andy Williams). So what does this have to do with development? Believe it or not, Christmas albums are a great analogy for what developers do all the time.

Picture this: It’s the summer of 1963 and you’re a record producer. You identify a market for a Christmas album and sign Andy Williams to record it. You pick the medium to release it, this time on record. You now have to get him to sing something. Rather than writing all-new songs, you use a body of work that already exists. For example, look at “Silent Night,” the last song on the album. Riding on the song’s established popularity, Andy put his own spin on it to appeal to the current market. You repeat this process for all but a few songs, creating an album much faster than doing it all from scratch.

I Saw Mommy Using APIs

Now let’s fast forward to today. You identify a market to capitalize on the Christmas season in a similar way. You note how dealers have a need to fill the stockings of thousands of gearheads with the perfect accessories for their vehicle. You pick the medium to release it, in the form of a web-based tool a dealer can add to their website. However, it’s not likely that you have the time or energy to build a tool that knows all the accessories for every vehicle. Don’t worry — the team at Insignia has you covered. They’ve worked long and hard to create a set of APIs to fit your need. All you need to do to make your idea sing is put your own spin on on it like Andy Williams.

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Insignia

Insignia is well-known for its accessory products used by thousands of dealers to help customers customize their vehicles. You can find Insignia accessory products on the Fortellis Marketplace. Insignia also makes some amazing tools that power this solution, which you can find in the Fortellis API Directory. For just a small subscription fee, you can skip over years of development and focus more on your product’s unique offerings.

Insignia Vehicle Selection API

This simple API works by filtering the available Vehicles by Year, Make, Model and Submodel (or Trim) for subsequent use with another API. Once you’ve drilled down to the right vehicle, you’ll get an Insignia model ID you can use with their other API offerings. View this API in the Fortellis API Directory

Insignia Top 25 Parts API

This API will supercharge your efforts by taking the model ID and returning the Top 25 parts that are sold in dealerships today. Now you can offer your customers the accessories they’re most likely to want. With these two simple API integrations, your gearhead customer Christmas list is complete! View this API in the Fortellis API Directory

Code For The Holidays

With the help of Fortellis and amazing APIs like the ones offered by Insignia, you can create a chart-topping application your fans will love by following the Christmas album approach to development. Just imagine the smiles on the faces of all your gearhead customers and the happy Parts managers. As Andy Williams would say, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”