Integration
As organizations begin to appreciate that effective CRM requires input from a wide range of business systems, the requirement to make data from back office systems visible to and integrated with, front office systems becomes more important. Relevant and consistent customer information can deliver a sustainable competitive advantage through more professional customer interactions, better decision making, improved staff satisfaction and greater customer loyalty.
Synchronous Integration
Synchronous (or “in session”) integration is required when there is a need for immediate feedback to the user during process integration, or when data needs to be timely. For example, StayinFront CRM might call out to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to submit a sales order and require feedback when the order has successfully been processed.
The preferred mechanism for synchronous integration with StayinFront CRM is Web Services. Web Service integration can either be direct between applications, or orchestrated by an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) application.
Inbound Synchronous Integration
StayinFront CRM publishes Web Services using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Inbound SOAP calls to StayinFront CRM are handled by StayinFront eBusiness running inside Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS). SOAP calls can come either directly from a third party application, or through EAI middleware application.
Outbound Synchronous Integration
Similarly SOAP calls can be made from StayinFront CRM to other applications, either directly or through an EAI middleware layer.
Other Types of Synchronous Integration
StayinFront CRM also supports a number of other synchronous integration mechanisms.
Data Level Integration is where one application directly accesses the database of another application. StayinFront CRM’s unique data modeling capabilities allow it to easily encapsulate data from other systems for outbound integration. Similarly StayinFront CRM’s database is open for other applications to access. Data level integration is only recommended for read only access.
API Integration is where calls are made between applications using an Application Programming Interface (API). StayinFront CRM has an extensive set of API functions that can be called by third party applications. StayinFront CRM can also call other applications’ APIs.
Portal Integration is where screens or forms from one application are integrated into another. StayinFront CRM has the capability to embed or launch screens from other applications. It is also possible to embed forms from StayinFront CRM into other applications.
Asynchronous Integration
Asynchronous integration is where the integration occurs outside of an application session. This kind of integration is generally less costly from an infrastructure point of view, and may be more appropriate where there is no need for immediate user feedback and data timeliness is less of an issue. It may be necessary when applications are not available online, which is common when offline remote systems are involved (a remote sales force implementation for example).
StayinFront Workflow is used to manage asynchronous integration with StayinFront CRM. StayinFront Workflow features an “Enterprise Application Integration Plug-in” which provides XML handling capabilities, and interoperation with asynchronous messaging platforms, such as Microsoft Message Queuing and IBM WebSphere® Business Integration Message Broker (formerly IBM WebSphere® MQ).
Inbound Asynchronous Integration
StayinFront Workflow is used to process Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents in response to messages arriving in a message queue. An incoming XML document could contain details of a new customer, or last month’s sales data.
Outbound Asynchronous Integration
In the outbound asynchronous scenario, XML messages are generated by StayinFront CRM in response to events in the system, for example when a new sales order is added, or a customer address is updated. Events that occur in a distributed environment (for example when an offline remote user updates an object) are consolidated and handled by a central StayinFront Workflow service.
The EAI plug-in for StayinFront Workflow will automatically generate XML of a given schema. The XML can then be posted to a message service such as Microsoft Message Queuing, where it can be picked up and processed by EAI middleware or a third party application.
Other Asynchronous Integration Scenarios
Numerous variations of the scenarios described above are also possible. Some examples are:
- A StayinFront Workflow process can be started in response to a file arriving in a directory, as opposed to a message arriving in a message queue.
- Messages could be used in a Comma Separated Value (CSV) format instead of XML.
- StayinFront Workflow could call another application’s API to update data instead of passing through an XML document.
Enterprise Application Integration
Many organizations have already implemented an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) strategy. EAI delivers a centralized, coordinated approach to integration. A well implemented EAI strategy will enable more complex integrations to be implemented, and lead to integration being used more often and more effectively. StayinFront CRM’s approach to integration has been designed to fit seamlessly with well implemented EAI strategies and popular EAI platforms such as IBM WebSphere® and Microsoft BizTalk® Server.
