You're talking to a business user who wants data from a web service to flow into an analytics workflow. They do not need protocol-level detail, but they do need a practical explanation of how the data gets requested, loaded, and checked inside a pipeline.
How would you explain an API to a business user who wants to pull data from a web service?
Explaining APIs in ETL termsMapping API calls to Alteryx pipeline stepsBasic orchestration and scheduling conceptsData quality checks on inbound web service data