Software Integration

You probably don't need new software. You need the software you already paid for to stop pretending the other systems don't exist.

The ERP knows what was ordered. The shop floor system knows what was made. Accounting knows what was invoiced. And somewhere in the middle there's a person with two windows open, reading from one and typing into the other.

That person is your integration layer. They're expensive, they're slow, and they make typos.

The mistake that makes this expensive later

Integration usually starts sensibly. Two systems, one connection. Then a third system arrives and needs data from both. Then a fourth.

Point to point Through one layer ERP CRM Shop floor Accounts Portal 10 connections to maintain One layer ERP CRM Shop floor Accounts Portal 5 connections to maintain
Five systems is where it turns. Add a sixth to the left-hand picture and you've added five more connections, not one.

Nobody plans the left-hand picture. It's what you get when each integration is solved on its own, by whoever was available, in whatever way was quickest that week.

You don't need a grand architecture on day one. You do need someone thinking about the second and third connection while they build the first.

Four ways into a system

Every integration comes down to how you get data in and out. There are four doors, and they are not equal.

Best first A real API Built for exactly this. Fastest, most reliable, least likely to break. The database Direct and quick, where the vendor allows it and the licence permits it. A file drop Unglamorous, widely supported, and it has worked for forty years. Driving the screen Last resort. Only when there is genuinely no other door in.
We work down this list, not up it. Most providers start at the bottom because it needs no cooperation from your vendor.

If the bottom row is the only option, that's robotic process automation and we'll tell you so plainly — along with what it will cost to keep alive. Where a system exposes a proper way in but the logic between them is simple, workflow automation is often enough on its own.

What we integrate

  • ERP to everything else. The single most common request, and usually the one with the clearest payback.
  • Shop floor to the back office. Production data that currently reaches accounting on paper, or via a spreadsheet someone emails.
  • CRM and quoting to order entry. So a won deal becomes an order without being typed twice.
  • Customer and vendor portals. Both directions — pulling their data in, and giving them a window into yours.
  • Accounting, payroll and time systems. Where the same hours get keyed into two places by two different people.
  • Building an API where none exists. This is the one that pays for itself twice, because it turns every future integration from a project into a connection.

The part that decides whether it works

Integrations don't usually fail at the connection. They fail at the edges.

  • What happens when the other end is down. Queue it, retry it, or stop and tell someone — but decide, rather than discovering the answer in production.
  • Which system is right. When the ERP and the CRM disagree about an address, one of them has to win. That's a business decision, and it's the one most integration projects skip.
  • What counts as the same record. Two systems rarely agree on what identifies a customer. Getting this wrong creates duplicates that take years to clean up.
  • How you find out it stopped. A silent integration is the dangerous kind. Nobody notices for three weeks, and then month end arrives.

We write these down before building anything, because they're the questions your business has to answer and we can't answer them for you.

Why Argyle

We administer PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle, and we write software in .NET, Java, Node.js, Python and Ruby on Rails. That combination matters here more than on almost any other kind of project, because integration work lives exactly where the application layer meets the data layer.

We also run the servers and the network underneath. When an integration stops at 4am, there's no triage call about whose problem it is — the credentials, the firewall rule, the certificate, the database and the code are all ours.

And we're in Perrysburg. For the discovery part of this work, where you need someone watching how data actually moves through your building, that proximity is the difference between a guess and a plan.

Show us the two systems

Tell us which two things don't talk and who's bridging the gap by hand. We'll tell you which door exists, what it would take, and whether it's worth doing.

Call 419-419-5737 or send us a message and ask about integration.

Argyle IT Solutions · 28304 Cedar Park Blvd., Suite A, Perrysburg, OH 43551 · Serving Toledo, Perrysburg, Maumee, Sylvania, Bowling Green, Findlay and all of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.