Here Today and...Here Tomorrow, Too: The Challenge of Capturing Changed Data Between Applications

An important consideration when designing and implementing an ongoing integration process between two or more applications is how to capture changed data within a source application. Let’s examine the three most common situations in which it’s necessary to capture changes, and how to begin dealing with them. (This article summarizes a more detailed white paper, which you can view here.)

1. Data replication – A very common and straightforward integration challenge is the need to replicate data from one application to other applications in one direction. For example, a company may want to replicate contract expiration data from their contracts management system into their CRM application. By having up to date contract data, users can conduct effective marketing and sales campaigns targeted at renewing customers designed to increase renewal rates and recurring revenue. Identifying those records that change in the contracts system and updating the CRM application with those changes is the most efficient way to ensure that the CRM users have the most up to date information.

2. Data synchronization – In this scenario, a company has two or more applications that contain the same information and they are looking to ensure that all copies of that information are consistent. For example, a company may have information on customers (contact names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.) in both a CRM and ERP application. If a customer notifies the billing department that their address has changed and that change is made in the ERP application, it is important that ...