October brings Halloween, filled with ghosts and goblins. In that spirit, we’d like to share what haunts the software integration world and why it can sometimes feel like a nightmare.
So grab some popcorn, dim the lights, and join us as we explore a few terrifying software integration challenges.
Note: This article was a part of our “Integration Nightmares” Halloween campaign but we keep the content regularly updated to ensure it remains relevant and informative.
Software Integration Challenges
When we talk about software integration, companies either opt to build the integration themselves, use native integration technologies their tools support, or choose third-party solutions.
In any case, they need to be aware of software integration challenges that have the potential to turn into full-fledged nightmares.
While we’re at it, let’s also explore some real-world jump scares companies have experienced with the software integration solutions they selected. You’ll find them scattered throughout the blog.
Security: A Dark and Sinister Space
With great integration comes great security! Always.
A weak software integration architecture can expose your sensitive data to threats and risks that you can no longer recover from.
Integration security isn’t merely a checkbox; it’s your protection against data breaches or leaks and your right to data privacy.
Such software integration challenges can only be solved by prioritizing solutions that have all the right security measures in place. Think HTTPS, encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access control, etc.
Some solutions like Exalate have distributed architecture that allows you full control over your side of the integration.
This improves security by limiting the integration scope independently at the endpoints, an ideal situation, especially for cross-company integrations.
| Security: Evaluate data protection measures every time! | |
| You’re in the final stages of procurement. A solution claims to have all required security certifications but they are hesitant to provide the proof. And it’s not possible to find the proof online. Total disaster! | Everything is exposed! Everything is required to be mapped (like issue types, fields, statuses, comments, and attachments) and it’s impossible to opt out of sending some of the data. What a nice surprise for your security team. |
| In most of the integration solutions, it’s impossible to share the admin ownership of flows between two people. It’s quite dangerous to have only one person setting up and maintaining the integration. Especially between companies. What if they accidentally leak some crucial data? Ouch! | While using a certain solution, there was no indication on the issues/entities stating that the sync is running and is successful. Now imagine that it was broken, and end users have no idea until it’s too late: things are piling up, you’re late on a project, someone didn’t receive crucial info in time, and so on. And now, if there is only 1 person who is the admin and they overlooked the problem – you might be in a very serious mess. |
The Ghost of Real-time Data Exchange
The primary goal of integration is to enable real-time data exchange, yet inappropriate software integration solutions can sabotage this effort.
When real-time integration capabilities become optional or take a backseat, you’re left with outdated or incomplete data.
Imagine a major security incident hits and the data exchange between the systems involved happens every 15 minutes. A delay this long for a security incident can at times prove detrimental, especially when time is of the essence as customer frustration continues to grow.
Real-time data exchange could have better aligned both teams instantly, enabling faster fixes and keeping customers informed in a timely manner.
Sometimes, batch-based syncs, for instance, that occur every hour can also leave you with outdated syncs and lost opportunities.
| Integration can kill your production – if it’s not real-time! | |
| Your brand-new integration takes up to 15 minutes to pick up the changes. Not cool! | Some of the other integration solutions we looked at used a kind of schedule-based approach…so every 10 minutes or whatnot. |
Scalability and Flexibility: The Shape-Shifting Duo of Business Landscapes
As businesses evolve, their processes, infrastructures, and software integration requirements quietly shift like shadows in the night.
These constant changes can complicate integration setups, leading to increased time and effort to set up the new requirements, increased investments, and maintenance woes.
Software integration tools that don’t scale with these evolving needs or handle complex, advanced scenarios will set you up for doom.
What starts as a small inconvenience turns into a full-blown disaster, where setting up every new use case is limited by template-based solutions leading you to adopt workarounds that might not fulfill all your needs.
In the end, an integration that can’t grow with your business will haunt your every move, blocking innovation and keeping you stuck with your choices.
| You’ve chosen what you thought was an amazing software integration tool that’s cheap, and fast, and the onboarding was swift and simple – a dream! A year passes, your company grows, and the integration scope and requirements have changed. Your awesome tool is useless now. | |
| Scalability and flexibility- why compromise? | You purchased a best-of-breed iPaaS solution but you’re only using 15% of its capabilities. Management is asking to justify the spent and you’re struggling with an explanation. |
| You’ve chosen what you thought was an amazing software integration tool that’s cheap, fast, and the onboarding was swift and simple – a dream! A year passes, your company grows, and the integration scope and requirements have changed. Your awesome tool is useless now. | |
Pricing and Value for Money: A Double-Edged Sword
Pricing is a significant software integration challenge.
Many organizations find themselves lured in by attractive initial prices, only to be confronted with hidden fees and unexpected costs later on.
This lack of transparency can quickly turn what seemed like a cost-effective solution into a financial burden.
Additionally, some integration tools come with complex pricing models that charge based on usage, features, or the number of connections, making it difficult for businesses to predict their expenses accurately.
This unpredictability can lead to budgeting issues, forcing companies to constantly reassess their financial commitments.
| Choose pricing clarity and transparency over chaos. | |
| The monthly price of an integration app from $19 went all the way to $374 per month. For a sync tool it is just a terrible deal. For an app that makes one simple sync feature, it’s a really bad decision for any entrepreneur. | You found a solution that suits you perfectly but because the pricing model was not clear and transparent enough the initial good price turned into a huge bill because of all the all extra addons you needed to get. |
| You started using a freemium model in a tool that, as it seemed, had a huge cap the company would never reach in a year. 5 months past, you’re at the paywall of thousands of dollars and it’s vital for the org processes to keep depending on that integration. Now people from procurement use your photo on their darts board. | |
Innovation with AI: Your Supernatural Sidekick
Everyone is hopping on the AI bandwagon eager to include innovations into their daily work lives at every opportunity.
Software integration solutions, just like any other software, must evolve and quickly adapt to these AI innovations. Falling behind means more than just inefficiency – it can be a business death sentence.
In this case, you’ve got two choices: catch up with the times or prepare to get into your coffin!
AI-powered integration can help make your integrations simpler and more efficient. You can now set up even complex use cases without being “ technical enough”, making once a daunting task now accessible to everyone.
With AI, you can automate complex workflows, improve accuracy, and reduce the manual effort that often bogs down software integrations.
In a world where innovation has become this important, embracing AI means turning your software integration nightmares into success stories, leaving behind the dust of outdated integration practices.
Legacy System Overheads: The Haunt of Outdated Platforms
Imagine this: you’re trying to integrate a cutting-edge cloud solution with a cobweb-covered legacy application that barely remembers what day it is.
Integrating legacy systems with mainstream apps or infrastructure reduces the manual work your team performs to access that data, saves money on full-scale modernization, and improves customer and employee experience.
But it has its own set of pain points.
- Lack of proper documentation to perform the integration
- Lack of qualified technicians to implement the integration
- Resistance to change the legacy system usage since it is too deeply embedded into the organization’s ecosystem
- Security or compliance considerations
- … turning your software integration project into a horror show.
Accumulated Technical Debt: A Lurking Monster
While building an integration yourself, every time you patch things up with a quick fix, in the world of software, this approach creates what’s known as technical debt.
So, each time you take a shortcut – a quick fix- you add to this debt. This debt if accumulated over time leads to extra work, more complex problems, and a system that becomes harder and harder to manage. Your software integration becomes slower and requires more work to maintain those patches, which often means even more quick fixes.
Eventually, a once relatively simple software integration project turns into an overwhelming monster mesh of complicated interlocking fixes.
To avoid this fate, it’s important to approach this software integration challenge thoughtfully and plan for the long term even if it takes a bit longer upfront.
Misaligned Business Processes vs. Reality: A Scary Disconnect
Organizations often perceive themselves as structured and orderly. However, take a closer look, and you might find a scary truth: the actual processes often diverge from what’s documented.
When such companies attempt software integrations without adhering to their own processes, confusion reigns.
Take, for example, a case Francis, our CEO faced with two companies collaborating for seven years.
On paper, their processes looked solid, but when they tried to integrate, hidden discrepancies slowly crept.
A recurring issue was the lack of a unified process for reopening tasks—a seemingly minor detail but one with big implications. While one company had a specific definition for reopening tasks, the other was more informal, relying on verbal approvals or assumptions about when a task needed to be revisited.
When it came time to sync these systems, the lack of clear, consistent criteria created confusion. Team members responded differently to the same scenarios, some reopening tasks multiple times, others leaving them closed, thinking it was understood.
Without an aligned, integrated process definition, the software integration spiraled into a scary state of disarray, causing miscommunication, delays, and headaches all around.
In cases like this, integration can only succeed if all parties agree on the process and follow it consistently.
Don’t Let Software Integration Challenges Keep You Up at Night!
Software integration challenges can become nightmares if not approached with the right strategy.
Security risks, non-real-time syncs, scalability issues, limiting integration use cases, unpredictable pricing, and misaligned business processes can all create significant hurdles.
On top of that, the integration tool you choose must be future-proof, able to evolve with your business and adopt AI innovations to stay competitive.
Discover how you can leave the haunting headaches of software integration behind with Exalate, without having to face any spooky surprises along the way.
With AI Assist, Exalate simplifies software integrations even further allowing non-technical users to set up even complex scenarios effortlessly.
