Bespoke systems
What should be decided before connecting two business systems?
A connection can move data in minutes. It cannot decide which of two conflicting records is right.
Published 25 September 2026
A sales tool marks a customer active while the billing system says the contract has ended.
Decide which event controls service access, how late updates are handled and who resolves a disagreement before synchronising the status.
Specify what is allowed to move
For each field, state its source, destination, timing and allowed direction of change. Decide whether a missing value should erase an existing one. These rules are business decisions, not integration plumbing.
Include permission and privacy requirements. A connection should not give the receiving system more information than the work requires.
Design for disagreement and failure
How will the team notice a failed transfer, a duplicate record or a conflict? Who will correct it, and which system will preserve the audit trail? Test these cases before declaring the connection complete.
A useful integration reduces manual reconciliation while leaving the business able to explain where an important fact came from.