Tips, Expertise, Articles and Advice from the Pro's for Your Website or Blog to Succeed
One of the most frequent integration questions we hear from SaaS teams is, "Which integrations should we build first?"
This question often arises as they start with our embedded integration platform (since it substantially increases how quickly they can launch new integrations). Still, it's relevant no matter how you build integrations to the other products your customers use.
An API integration is the code that allows one system to transfer data to or from another system while using an API (application programming interface) to securely access the system. Some API integrations may only have an API on one side of the integration, while others might use two or more APIs.
Devs build API integrations for different reasons, but those integrations generally fall into one of two categories:
From the earliest days of software development, authentication (also called auth) has been essential. To ensure system and data security, you must ensure that only properly identified users are permitted to log in to a system.
If you’re building native integrations to connect your SaaS product to the other apps your customers use, one of the tricky pieces is dealing with the nuances of the third-party apps, such as authentication. Sometimes you'll be the one setting up authentication for your own app, and sometimes you'll need to configure your integrations to use whatever auth pattern has been provided. In either case, knowing how user authentication methods work and what to look for can save you time and prevent integration headaches.
An HTTP message is a common means by which two systems, usually a server and a client, exchange data. We typically refer to each HTTP message as an HTTP request or an HTTP response.
Webhook HTTP requests are a specific subset of HTTP requests which transfer data between systems based on events in those systems. Webhooks are used with many event-driven integrations.
Webhooks are ubiquitous in SaaS integrations, and there’s a good reason for that. They are a simple and speedy way to transfer data via HTTP callbacks between systems based on changes to data in those systems.
In this post, we’ll describe the recommended approach. But first, let’s lay some groundwork.
According to a recent survey, the number of SaaS companies has grown to more than 25,000 worldwide. In general, businesses that subscribe to SaaS products work with multiple SaaS vendors and expect that the apps will integrate with each other. To address this, some SaaS companies build bespoke integrations into their apps, while others go with an embedded integration platform to address their customers' integration needs.
Regardless of the approach you are taking for integrations with your app, you'll find that most integrations should fit into a few common patterns. Knowing these patterns will help whether you find yourself in the midst of an integration project, just getting started with building out your API, or in the early days of planning a new SaaS app.