Additional Integrations Overview

My name is Mark, and I’m here with Julie. And we’re just going to have a discussion around additional integrations. I’m going to run this kind of like an interview style with Julie. How are you, Julie? I am well, Mark. How are you? Excellent, excellent. OK, we’ve learned a lot about integrations with nearly everything on the Microsoft stack. With all these options for integrations, what’s left? Well, yes, it seems like we’ve covered all the moving parts in Office as well as things like Yammer and Skype. But the integration possibilities are nearly endless. A call centre might need to integrate with a CTI system, or a retail organisation could include a chat bot in their online store. What’s this thing about bots?

Well, using artificial intelligence as your first line of interactive communication. OK, let’s say my company has a very old legacy system, so a mainframe or particularly in a banking scenario, That. Absolutely depend on that system to do their business. And there’s no reasonable way to update it. How can that be integrated? Well, using APIs. The CDS Web API provides a development experience that can be used across a wide variety of programming languages, platforms, and devices. The Web API implements OData, Open Data Protocol, version 4.0, an OASIS standard for building and consuming RESTful APIs over rich data sources. There’s also on-premise gateway support for some scenarios that require hybrid integrations. Wow, that sounds technical. Well, it can be pretty technical.

There are some integrations that are fairly straightforward and some that requires multiple resources from a functional consultant to an architect to a developer. The key here is that we have all these choices. OK, so can these integrations communicate bidirectionally? Well, it can be, or it doesn’t have to be bidirectional. It’s always a good idea to have a formal system of record for the important pieces of data. But often, you have reasons for exchange of data between these two complementary systems. Mhm. So before I get my developers starting to build custom integrations, are there any other considerations I should keep in mind? Oh, totally.

Microsoft AppSource should be checked first to see if there’s already a pre-built solution that would handle these requirements. It keeps the maintenance and ongoing cost lower. Mhm. OK, so any final words on integration with the Power Platform? Well, a lot of ad-hoc integrations can just be completed using Microsoft Flow, those 200-plus connectors. There are connectors for many common integration categories like document signing, file sharing, marketing, project management, social, and so many more choices. Wow. Thanks, Julie. That was really helpful. Thanks, Mark.