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More and more companies from different industries are managing their data to monetize their business. Doing it the right way requires, in addition, a good set of integrations capable of connecting the systems where they come from, where they are stored or where they are managed. What are these integrations and what are the advantages of designing a good implementation? Read on to find out.

Table of Contents:

• What are integrations?
• What is an API?
• What types of integrations are available?
• Guidelines for building a good integration flow

 

For some time now, millions and millions of pieces of data have been generated every day. According to Statista estimates, the total amount of data created, captured, copied and consumed worldwide will increase at an ever-increasing rate, which means that by 2025 the volume will be 180 times greater than in 2010 globally, measured in zettabytes.

Against this backdrop, companies have a great challenge ahead of them, even more so when considering that data creation, replication and storage is also on the rise. In fact, the same source considers that only less than 2% of the data generated worldwide was stored and saved between 2021 and 2020.

This only makes it urgent for companies to start managing data in an intelligent way, not only for the convenience of their business, but also so that this accumulation does not fall on top of the business itself.

Data management requires, among other things, a proper connection between systems, so that the flow of information is not interrupted and the process can be automated. This is done with integrations, let’s see in detail what they are.

What are integrations?

Integrations are program interfaces that function as connectors between two or more systems that can emit, receive, store or manage data from different sources.

Such connections allow companies to obtain data from other platforms or systems and integrate them into their own systems in an automated way, without the need to do it manually, thus avoiding errors and optimizing the allocation of resources. In addition, and after the necessary integrations are made, it is possible to robotize processes, further enhancing the benefits.

Sometimes, companies need to work with data and they know they have it, but the problem arises, for example, when the origin of that data does not reach their own system and is therefore wasted. Let’s look at an example:

Knowing that an electronic payment application receives X amount of transactions per day for a customer, and that the customer must account for those payments, issue invoices, initiate a logistical process in return for the payment received, etc., an interface such as API Connector will bring this data (transactions) it received into the customer’s system in a form suitable for it to manage, independent of the programming of the payment application and the receiving system, as well as the processes that will continue with its arrival.

In particular, this homogenization of information is produced by the integrations which, in the case of Conciliac EDM, responds to a complete module that offers a wide variety of options for different types of connections. We will now explore one of these interfaces.

What is an API?

An API is, by its initials, an Application Programming Interface. That is, a set of protocols and rules that allow applications to communicate and interact with each other or with different software.

APIs facilitate the exchange of data and functionalities between different systems by means of a clear and standardized interface that allows developers to access certain functions or services of an application or platform without having to know all the internal details of its implementation.

APIs can be private, as long as they are used to connect systems and data within a company; or they can also be public, when they are open to the public and anyone can use them.

They can also be implemented for different purposes, such as allowing a web application to access data stored in a remote database, or a mobile application to integrate social networking functionalities such as content sharing or user authentication.

They can also be used to connect different services or platforms, enabling interoperability and the creation of more complex application ecosystems.

What types of integrations are available?

Our platform, Conciliac EDM, has different types of integrations or interfaces, namely:

• API Connector, or Application Programming Interface, as I described in the previous section.
• DB Connector, enables you to connect to external databases, which can be located in another site and can be accessed by means of queries.
• ERP Connector, is an interface developed by Conciliac and certified by SAP to connect with SAP ERP in its R3 and S4Hana editions. It allows to access documents stored in the ERP, import them to Conciliac to process them and return them as reconciled items. It is very powerful and valued by the entire SAP ecosystem.
• FTP Connector, is an interface where the configuration between computers of extraction of a certain type of folder is performed and will take what is specified to the connector.
• SharePoint, this file-to-file connection interface is very similar to the previous one, but operates on cloud folders in a Microsoft SharePoint environment.

Guidelines for building a good integration flow

Each company will implement one or more integrations according to its needs and the opportunities they provide, taking into account the following four recommendations:

1. Knowing what information to extract
   It is essential that the different teams within a company are aligned with the goal and that, in addition, they recognize what information they are requesting and what they are going to use it for. Good communication will make it possible for the area requesting this integration to translate to the IT department of your company certain details related to the protocols or rules of each connector.
2. Understanding security levels
   Sometimes, companies consider that this type of integration flows are prone to break with the security scheme of a company, when the reality is that, in the case of Conciliac EDM, the platform is on premise, which means that the data is stored locally, remaining in the system without being transferred to third parties.
3. Recognize where information needs to be extracted from
   Identifying the type of information and the source is critical to understanding the design flow of integrations, knowing which data sources will be appropriate to use as connectors.
4. Identify which formats provide the data points
   In line with the previous point, a correct identification of the source and target data sources, or those that interact with each other, is also essential to understand what is the most optimal flow.

In summary, the great challenge for data driven companies today is to carry out an appropriate data management, for which it is imperative that they have the necessary integrations for the management of their data.

Some, with the intention of solving this issue, hire several platforms separately, when Conciliac EDM has a complete integration module in one place, where they also have other automation and robotization modules with which they can enhance the benefits of managing data, visualizing more business opportunities and eliminating the accumulation of useful information, which is finally wasted..

With Conciliac EDM, each data is an access key, and all of them can be managed in one place. Ask for a demo and test the platform.