Sending PATCHes

You can use a request tool, such as Postman, to ensure PATCHes are well-formed and to review the structure of the response payloads. For more information on Postman, see Requests and responses.

Send a PATCH using Postman

Procedure

  1. In Postman, start a new request by clicking the + to the right of the Launchpad tab.
  2. Specify Basic Auth authorization using user aapplegate and password gw.
  3. Under the Untitled Request label, select PATCH.
  4. In the Enter request URL field, enter the URL for the server and the endpoint.
    • For example, to patch role billing_manager on an instance of BillingCenter on your machine, enter: http://localhost:8580/bc/rest/admin/v1/roles/billing_manager
  5. Specify the request payload.
    • In the first row of tabs (the one that starts with Params), click Body.
    • In the row of radio buttons, select raw.
    • At the end of the row of radio buttons, change the drop-down list value from Text to JSON.
    • Paste the request payload into the text field underneath the radio buttons.
  6. Click Send. The response payload appears below the request payload.

Tutorial: PATCH an account

This tutorial assumes you have set up your environment with Postman and the correct sample data set. For more information, see Tutorial: Set up your Postman environment.

In this tutorial, you will find an open activity from the sample data. You will then update the activity's subject and priority.

Tutorial steps

  1. In Postman, start a new request by clicking the + to the right of the Launchpad tab.
    1. On the Authorization tab, select Basic Auth using user aapplegate and password gw.
  2. The sample data includes one sample account called "Standard Account." Query for that account by entering the following call and clicking Send:
    1. GET http://localhost:8180/bc/rest/billing/v1/accounts?filter=accountNumber:eq:Standard%20Account
  3. For the account in the response payload, note the following information:
    1. The account ID (id)
    2. The account name (accountName)
  4. Open a second request tab and right-clicking the first tab and selecting Duplicate Tab.
  5. Change the operation to PATCH and enter the following URL, but do not click Send yet:
    1. PATCH http://localhost:8180/bc/rest/billing/v1/accounts/<accountID>
  6. Specify the request payload.
    1. In the first row of tabs (the one that starts with Params), click Body.
    2. In the row of radio buttons, select raw.
    3. At the end of the row of radio buttons, change the drop-down list value from Text to JSON.
    4. Paste the following into the text field underneath the radio buttons. 
      {
    "data": {
        "attributes": {
            "accountName": "Updated Standard Account"
        }
    }
}
  7. Click Send. The response payload appears below the request payload.

Checking your work

  1. View the modified activity in BillingCenter.
    1. Log into BillingCenter as the user aapplegate. Click on the Account tab. Search for "Standard Account" in the Account # field, and select the account.

The PATCHed account now has the name "Updated Standard Account."