Integration Check List

Most important considerations before starting an integration

In addition to checking the below, please review the integration best practices.

Check list before an integration

• Is the system you like to integrate present on our platform?

  • If not, please provide the following information:

    • Does the system provide a rest API or SOAP web service?

    • Is a Swagger file / OpenAPI documentation available?

    • Which endpoints / functions need to be used?

    • Optional: Does the system provide export functionality?

    • Optional: Does the system provide database access e.g. via ODBC?

    • Optional: Who can be consulted on technical issues?

• Are test or staging systems available?

• Test data should be prepared for the first instance but also for testing later changes

• Authentications: Are all API keys or username and password at hand? If restricted role-based access is available, this should be agreed upon and configured

• Is the service publicly available, or are firewalls present that require IP-white listing?

  • For firewalls, VPN access needs to be granted

  • Our static IP needs to be requested via a support ticket and white-labeled on the other systems

• Consider all data privacy and GDPR / DSGVO requirements, e.g., deletion requirements, etc.

• Synchronization technical aspects

  • Execution frequency - Real-time vs. e.g., daily sync (see also Webhooks for real-time syncs)

  • Webhooks - Are webhooks available?

    • Can these be registered programmatically (via the API) or do they have to be registered manually in the UI?

    • Does the platform support multiple webhooks?

    • Are the required events available?

  • Object mapping - Sometimes, objects don't map 1:1, and on one system, one object can be represented in two objects on the other system. This has implications on the integration flow

  • Field mappings - Please request our Google sheet template as an ideal basis

  • Custom fields - If one system allows custom fields, how are they handled in the other system? Can they be added by users easily, and how should the integration handle unexpected new custom fields?

  • Data model relations - through what unique / foreign keys are objects connected?

  • Validation - Do the systems provide validation of data (length, some characters only, ...), and how are they enforced? If they are not enforced, there are several ways, e.g. the replace('#', '') Jinja-function to do this on our side.

  • Pagination - For large data sets, how is pagination taken care of to loop over lists?

  • Filtering - Can views, lists, or collections be filtered via the API?

  • Sorting - Can views, lists, or collections be sorted via the API?

  • Transformation of data,...

    • e.g., one system uses UTC-timestamps, the other German timestamps; how is the transformation done?

    • One system uses EUR and USD as currencies, the other currency symbols $ € - how is the mapping done?

    • Select drop-down fields: Where are the options stored? What if a new option is generated (e.g., it is easy to generate new options in Salesforce)? Should a default value be used or an error be thrown?

    • ...

• Who gets error messages if an integration run fails?

• Once records are - created, updated, or deleted - on one system, what should happen on the respective other system?