Smoother operations by linking software

Remote working and technological developments are accelerating the digitisation of work. The range of tools available is greater than ever. Useful tools are being implemented for different processes. This ensures that the entire business relies on a large number of independent programmes. As a result, operations can become cluttered. Fortunately, there are ways to bring order to this digital chaos, namely by linking software.

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    Linking software

    The aim in digitisation is for all software to work together as a smooth whole. Employing separate tools all the time segments the digital process. This often creates extra work to move data between programmes. The solution is to link the software. For example, the HR tool can exchange data with the administration tool or the CRM programme can be linked to the invoicing system. This is often simpler than it seems. There are several options for this.

    APIs

    In very many cases, applications have an Application Programming Interface (API). This is a component that allows any data from the software to be translated for other software. In this way, applications can 'communicate' with each other. Our developers then code a kind of intermediate layers that glue all the software together to form a coherent whole. 

    NO API

    A programme may also not have an API. Fortunately, everything is becoming more 'open source' and this is less and less of an issue. If there is no API, there are still possibilities to link tools. First of all, the supplier can be contacted. These are often open to cooperate. They often realise that the possibility of linking contributes positively to the user experience. Our developers then work with the supplier on a new API that communicates with our own API. If the supplier does not cooperate, it is always possible to set up a workaround. For example, by exporting data in Excel or .csv files and processing them automatically in other software.

    Automatic actions

    If the apps are linked through APIs, they can not only communicate with each other but also interact with each other. Depending on your business process and objectives, there are endless possibilities to set up automatic actions. Using APIs, our developers have all the freedom to link actions to the tools' data. They then implement so-called cronjobs. These continuously check whether data meet certain criteria. If it recognises that data X has a certain value, action Y is triggered automatically.

    Dashboard

    As soon as applications work together, more and more actions will be automatic. This also means that many interim checkpoints will disappear and the overview will be lost. This is easily solved by developing a central dashboard that clearly displays the progress of the processes. Here you can see all relevant data at a glance. By using a dashboard, you no longer need to switch between the separate software in order to check the work.