Summary
About Shell Mobility
Values & Partnership
"We are very satisfied with our collaboration. Your team’s speed, simplicity, and expertise have met our expectations. Your prompt responses and straightforward processes have made working together smooth and efficient. We look forward to continuing our partnership”
Sofiia, Product Owner DX at Shell.
Outcomes
The Journey
Features and Custom Solutions
SSO and Taxonomy-based Access Control
The developer portal has internal and external SSO solutions, and taxonomy-based access control. The access control mechanism enables the content editors and APIs owners to target their consumers with a personalized content area, which will be only available to them.
This also allows Shell to reveal the content elements and APIs in a phased journey to gather customer input from the beginning. This way, users can only see relevant content, which improves the onboarding process and enhances user experience.
API Management Layer
The developer portal is integrated with two different Organizations: Sandbox and Production. While the Sandbox integration is entirely self-service for Consumers (they can create and manage all their Apps and Credentials themselves) the Production integration is one-way only: a Go live request has to be sent to the Provider (Shell) who will make the necessary arrangement in the underlying systems, and will create the App for the Consumer. This is a safety measure to keep the Production environment secure. Pronovix has made the process easier with some automations for Shell.
There is a form for the product access requests. The workflow enables the users to try out the APIs in a non-Production environment before making a contractual step to consume the Production APIs in their Application. Currently this is email-based communication between the parties, but further improvements are on the way to make this more automated with Shell’s customer support system.
System Functionalities
The API status page displays if an issue occurs with the API and shows previous outages and incidents. Shell can also communicate upcoming maintenance windows to their users. All of these provide transparency regarding the API’s state. Taxonomy-based access control works as a restriction tool: anonymous users can only see twenty-six APIs, while the current number—at the time when the case study was written—is forty-two.
Shell has an API catalog (named APIs) where users can see all of the APIs, and it’s also possible to sort them by categories (for example: B2B, EV, Payments). In-page navigation is also possible on the API reference, and API status information is available for the visitors. Users need to find the relevant product as soon as possible, and the listing page, the navigation, and the API catalog all serve this goal.
Pronovix also did custom design for the customer such as App creation workflow, file uploading, and downloading.
Shell is committed to meeting accessibility requirements. The developer portal includes Lottie animations, which enhance visual appeal and create a more engaging user experience. These animations can be toggled on and off as needed.
On the Shell developer portal, animations can be turned off and on at any time. Time of screenshot: 25 July 2024.
Given the potential for accessibility issues with dynamic screen elements, this feature lets the users decide if they want to see the animations.
Support
The portal offers many support options for the users. One can rely on the FAQ block, or ask technical or business-related questions. This way, the developer portal caters more user personas with the necessary information.
Support options on developer.shell.com. Users can choose if they need business inquiry or technical support. Time of screenshot: 25 July, 2024.
As of 2024, Shell relies on Pronovix’ hosting and support, but the collaboration points further.
