Creating a provider organization

For developers to publish APIs, they must be a member of a provider organization. The first step is to create a provider organization and specify an organization owner. Then members can be added to the provider organization and can start publishing APIs.

• Option 1: To create a provider organization and invite a new user to register as the owner, complete the following steps:
  1. In the Cloud Manager, click Provider Organizations.
  2. Click Add > Invite organization owner
  3. Enter a valid email address and click Invite. An email containing an activation link is sent to the email address inviting the person to register. The link opens the registration form. Alternately, you can copy and paste the activation link into an email; click Get Activation Link and click Copy in the pop up window.

     Note that the email server requires the Authenticate User and Authenticate Password values in order to send invitations. See Configuring an email server for notifications.

     The new provider organization is placed in Pending status, and is changed to Enabled status after the owner completes the registration form to activate their account. The owner can then log in to the API Manager user interface with the API Connect user name that they specified during account activation.

     Note: If you use this option with a Local User Registry, and the user already exists in the registry, the user must re-activate their account by using the Sign In option, not by completing the registration form and using the Sign Up option; attempting to re-register will fail. This stipulation includes users that were previously provider organization owners but whose organization was deleted.
• Option 2: To create a provider organization and specify the user who will be the organization owner, complete the followings steps:
  1. In the Cloud Manager, click Provider Organizations.
  2. Click Add > Create organization.
  3. In the Title field, enter a title for the provider organization. If desired, the title can be edited after the provider organization is created.
  4. The internal Name is automatically generated for you by the system. The Name field contains the string that is included in the organization segment of the URL for API calls. For more information, see Calling an API.
     Tip: The Name field is auto-generated to ensure its validity in the URL.

     The value in the Name field is also used to identify the provider organization in developer toolkit CLI commands. To view the CLI commands to manage provider organizations, see apic orgs.

  5. Select the user registry for the provider organization owner.
     The remaining procedure varies according to the type of the selected user registry, as follows:

     • Local User Registry
       1. Select whether the user is an Existing user or a New User.
          • For an existing user, complete the following steps:
            1. Enter the name of an existing API Connect user that has previously been invited to register and has activated their account.
            2. Click Create. The provider organization is created and immediately enabled. The specified owner can log in to the API Manager user interface. If the new provider organization is the user's only provider organization, the API Manager user interface opens in that provider organization; if the user is a member of more than one provider organization, they can then select the new provider organization from the Organization list.
          • For a new user, complete the following steps:
            1. Enter a unique user name for the new user.
            2. Supply an email address, name details, and a password.
            3. Click Create. The user account is created, and the provider organization is created and immediately enabled. The specified owner can log in to the API Manager user interface with the specified user name and password; the user interface open in the new provider organization.
     • LDAP
       1. Enter the name of a user that exists in the selected user registry.
       2. Click Create. The provider organization is created and immediately enabled. The specified owner can log in to the API Manager user interface with their LDAP user name. If the new provider organization is the user's only provider organization, the API Manager user interface opens in that provider organization; if the user is a member of more than one provider organization, they can then select the new provider organization from the Organization list.
     • Authentication URL and OIDC
       1. Enter the name of an existing API Connect user that has previously been invited to register and has activated their account. If the required organization owner has not previously been invited and activated their account, you must use the invitation mechanism described in Option 1.
       2. Click Create. The provider organization is created and immediately enabled. The specified owner can log in to the API Manager user interface. If the new provider organization is the user's only provider organization, the API Manager user interface opens in that provider organization; if the user is a member of more than one provider organization, they can then select the new provider organization from the Organization list.