Six key steps in the Implementation of Data Integration

Now, data integration solutions are increasingly being adopted by enterprises to support increasingly complex business projects and technical implementations. However, in the process of data integration deployment, companies must be fully confident to succeed. This article will focus on several important considerations.


    When implementing data integration, the most important thing is to ensure that there are corresponding business requirements. Three business scenarios are listed below for readers' reference:


    Enterprise groups need unified data


    When companies have mergers and acquisitions, you may need to integrate all corporate data and integrate them. Take Hypercity as an example. Hypercity, Shoppers Stop, and Crosswords are all retail group companies. We need to integrate all their customer data to better serve our customer groups.


    Facilitate data flow in the system


    That is, when you need to integrate multiple data sources and applications to implement a certain business process; for example, the data flow of some business analysis tools will come from multiple applications-commodity management systems or Oracle financial systems, etc.


    Data integration that may be required when deploying new applications


    A new enterprise application needs all the data from the existing application. Let's take Hypercity as an example. When implementing door-to-door applications, we need to retrieve customer and product information from the existing system. At this time, data integration becomes very important.


    key step:


    1. Cooperate with software vendors


    As a company, letting the manufacturer correctly understand your business needs is good for you. Because only in this way, manufacturer executives can accurately identify and integrate all the data points you need.


    2. Define and divide the integration priority


    List all required data integration tasks and arrange the deployment plan. Your goal should be to complete all data integration activities before the deployment or formal use phase, and define the update frequency of growth data. In addition, it is necessary to estimate the benefits of data integration solutions based on cost and time savings.


    3. Choose the right integrated interface


    The data integration solution provides two data interfaces: one-way and two-way. You need to know which one should be used.


    In a one-way interface, data is only transferred from point A to point B, and there is no return or back and forth movement. On our B2B platform, suppliers can track the shipping information of the store. Inventory, payment, and sales information are all sent to the B2B platform, but no data is returned to these data sources.


    In a two-way interface, data is transferred from one application to another, and then back. On our platform, if a new application (such as point of sale, POS) is deployed, product data will be sent from the commodity management system to the POS, and then the sales data will be sent back from the POS.


    4. Choose a correct interface media, the simplest is not necessarily the best


    The choice of interface media must consider future needs and upgrade issues. There are many methods for data integration-XML, comma-qualified, spreadsheet, direct database connection, etc.; however, the simplest method may not be the most suitable for your business. You should consider various aspects, such as scalability requirements, data Capacity and budget expenditure etc. For many years, text-based integration has been very popular, but now many companies are beginning to use XML and direct database connections.


    5. Monitoring process, setting multiple detection points


    Fine-tune the integration data. For our B2B platform, data integration will be carried out at the end of each day, and only the increased data will be transmitted to the server. Hypercity's detection points start from the source system and are distributed at various levels. Some issues related to sales volume and retail price are raised in these inspection points. The extraction and upload stage of the B2B platform constitutes the second detection point, and the answer to the question will appear here. The automated system checks the accuracy of the input data. In order to avoid the occurrence of errors, relevant users will receive reminder emails to confirm whether all-day data is uploaded correctly and whether corrective measures are required.


    6. Ensure data security


    Set up security policies based on risk levels. If you are only converting data on the internal network, you may not need to encrypt; but if you need to transmit data externally, you may need to take precautions.