Plan APIs, events and identities together to build maintainable connections between ERP, CMS and service platforms.
Who is this for? Architecture and development teams who want to connect multiple applications and keep dependencies controllable.
Use cases and context
Integration connects business responsibilities, not just technical endpoints. The leading system for customers, products, or employees must be clear. Otherwise, conflicting data sets will emerge, even though each individual transfer is technically successful.
Synchronous APIs are suitable for immediate responses. Events can decouple systems in time, but they bring questions about order, repetition, and delay. The right combination depends on consistency requirements, data volume, and behavior in the event of failures.
The approach in detail
- Clarify technical data responsibility and life cycles. For each object, record who creates, changes and archives it.
- Describe interface contracts: identifiers, required fields, versions, error responses, and permissions. Review sample messages with the teams involved.
- Test failures and retries. Provide unique operation identifiers, limited retries, and an editable defect inventory.
Expected outcomes
- Traceable data responsibility per object
- Versioned and understandable interface contracts
- Observable message and error processing
- Planned handling of outages and changes
Prepare for an informed decision
Bring existing API descriptions, data models, and typical process cases with you. For critical operations, both the desired outcome and prohibited duplicate actions are documented.
Access is set up for a specific purpose and with as few permissions as possible. Personal content and secrets do not belong in freely accessible protocols or test data.
Questions and answers
Does every application need to support events?
No. A clear API or a controlled import can also be suitable. The integration pattern should meet the technical requirements with reasonable effort.
How do changes remain manageable?
With versioned contracts, compatibility tests and agreed transition periods. Dependent applications need a plannable migration path before an incompatible change.