Many businesses face challenges in managing their data.
From Excel spreadsheets through to off-the-shelf commercial systems, the ability to get the most out of the information that you hold about customers, products and sales is crucial to ensuring your business is delivering to the best of its ability.
The Challenge of Disconnected Systems
Sometimes that data is spread around disparate, disconnected systems – and it is here that Infotex can help. For over 20 years, we’ve been building integration solutions that link those disparate systems together, enabling our customers to maximise the business value of their key data.
You might use this new view of your data to improve reporting, perform data analytics or even pass it to an AI engine to get further insights. Not having to manually retrieve and match up data from different systems could save you and your team hours of work – especially when those tasks need to be repeated daily.
What Is an API? Why Does It Matter?
One way of connecting systems together is via an API (Application Programming Interface) – a type of system that is used for the transfer of data between electronic systems, both incoming and outgoing.
There may already be APIs for the systems that your organisation is using to store data. We can help you to use them to access that data and link it to data you already have in other systems, helping you to build insights that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. If there isn’t already an API for your system we could investigate the possibility of creating one or finding other creative ways of you being able to make better use of your organisation’s data.
Real-World Examples
API’s don’t necessarily require you to have lots of systems in your business or indeed any custom systems as some of the most effective uses are to link two, or more, existing off-the-shelf solutions, perhaps your internal messaging system and your alarm system to let you know each time someone comes or goes. Maybe your marketing team would like a daily message summarising the previous days sales and what stock will soon be running low based on projected sales rates.
The Infotex team has delivered a wide variety of integration solutions, with a range of customers and their external system providers. These include:
- A custom-built API for Ann Summers, linking their back-office systems with our Click and Collect solution.
- An integration with the API of a provider of rehabilitation exercises and advice that seamlessly incorporates that data into a customer’s platform
- An integration with the Microsoft Azure Translation API to dynamically translate content on a system
- Multiple integrations with APIs and data from the NHS.
Enhancing Websites & Ecommerce Systems
Many of our website build and ecommerce projects have found benefits from linking the website to existing back-office systems for accounting and stock control purposes. This integration streamlines operations, reduces manual data entry, and ensures real-time accuracy across all platforms.
When there haven’t been APIs readily available we’ve used a variety of different mechanisms for transmitting data so have a proven record of tailoring a cost-effective solution to our customers specific needs.
Our Internal Approach to APIs
Many of the systems that Infotex build contain their own internal APIs which enables us to keep the system simple and streamlined with dedicated responsibilities for each element of the system delegated to an API for that element.
Recently our systems team have been working on a project involving distributed messaging where one system sends a message when something changes in it and that message can then be read by one or more other systems which can then act on the contents of the message by updating data in the other systems or generating output reports or emails. This has the benefit of the source system not needing to wait for any downstream system to acknowledge that it has received and acted upon data it has been sent.
Ready to Connect the Dots?
If you’d like to find out how we can help with your organisation’s data challenges please get in touch.
