Factors that you need to consider when choosing a technology for your integration.
Overview
This article outlines the key factors that you need to consider when choosing a technology for your integration. With integrations, you can seamlessly import and export data from external systems and automate workflows for your organization.
To cater to a diverse set of requirements that you may have, we offer several integration solutions, including the following:
Before you initiate the integration process, collect the requirements for your integration and evaluate the setup of the external system. Then, based on your requirements, select a technology considering the advantages and disadvantages of each solution.
Use Out-of-the-Box Integrations
To explore pre-built solutions designed for integrating with third-party systems, see Out-of-the-Box Integrations.
Advantages:
- SAP LeanIX handles the development, operation, and maintenance of the integration.
- A workspace administrator can configure the integration directly within the user interface of SAP LeanIX.
- For assistance in creating a suitable configuration for your specific use case, you can refer to our extensive documentation or seek guidance from our Customer Success Team.
- You don't need any middleware or engineering resources for the integration setup.
Disadvantages:
- Our out-of-the-box integrations are designed for specific use cases and might not fully align with your requirements.
- To configure some out-of-the-box integrations, you may need to purchase additional SAP LeanIX products.
- The synchronization timing, whether real-time or based on a daily schedule, depends on the capabilities of specific integrations.
Integrate Using the GraphQL API, REST APIs, and Webhooks
We provide an extensive range of APIs to accommodate your use cases and requirements. Explore our GraphQL API, REST APIs, and webhooks.
Advantages:
- SAP LeanIX handles the development, operation, and maintenance of APIs, ensuring their stability and reliability.
- You can tailor the integration to your unique use cases or requirements as long as you can implement the integration using our APIs.
- There is a wide range of technologies and tools to develop, operate, and maintain your custom integration. You can choose any solution according to your engineering guidelines and policies.
- You can adjust the synchronization timing for the integration according to your requirements. You can schedule full synchronizations at a specific time or set up a webhook event to trigger real-time synchronizations.
Disadvantages:
- Developing, operating, and maintaining your custom integration is your responsibility, which requires dedicated engineering capabilities and resources on your end.
Build a Custom Integration Using the Integration API
We offer the Integration API that enables you to build a custom integration according to your use case and requirements while investing less effort and resources compared to other alternative solutions. For more information, see Integration API.
Advantages:
- The Integration API allows you to significantly reduce the amount of resources and requirements that you need on your end. Instead of implementing an entire integration from scratch, you need to configure the external system to provide or consume relevant data using our custom LeanIX Data Interchange Format (LDIF) format.
- Anyone with sufficient technical knowledge can operate and maintain the actual mapping of your custom integration. You don't need a dedicated engineering team for that.
- To assist you with setting up an appropriate configuration for your use case, we provide comprehensive documentation and offer guidance through our Customer Success Team.
Disadvantages:
- You need to use a middleware to consume or provide your data in the LDIF format.
- While you don't need a professional engineering background, investing time in learning the language of the processor configurations within the Integration API may be necessary.
- Developing and maintaining the processor configuration does not provide the same developer experience that you may be accustomed to with other implementation solutions. This relates to possibilities such as auto-completion, debugging, or automated testing.
- The Integration API does not support real-time synchronization of data.