HOW TO SPOT A GREAT API The 7 Traits of a Strong Data Integration API

Whitepaper

Table of ContentsPreface ............................................................................................................................................. 2

Attributes of a World-Class Data Integration AP ...................................................................... 2

1 – OPEN STANDARDS VERSUS PROPRIETARY ARCHITECTURE ......................................... 2

2 – CHANGE DATA CAPTURE ......................................................................................................... 3

3 – PERFORMANCE AND EFFICIENCY ........................................................................................ 3

4 – Meta Data Driven .........................................................................................................................4

5 – CONSISTENCY AND OBVIOUSNESS ......................................................................................4

6 – SECURITY ......................................................................................................................................4

7 – USER EXPERIENCE ..................................................................................................................... 5

Closing ............................................................................................................................................. 5

About Scribe Online....................................................................................................................... 6

Whitepaper:

HOW TO SPOT A GREAT API The 7 Traits of a Strong Data Integration API

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PrefaceA desire for business agility has fueled the adoption of cloud computing and applications available as software services (a.k.a., software as a service, or SaaS, applications). In certain application areas, such as CRM and ERP, adoption of SaaS versions of these applications has been measured, but steady, and in other application areas, such as marketing automation and human capital management, the adoption of SaaS versions has been rapid and now represents the majority of the applications used in those sectors today. Across the board, however, it is apparent that the efficiency, agility, and long-term supportability of SaaS applications has been proven and is fueling an increase in the number of applications being deployed at enterprises. In the evolution of the SaaS application market, the evaluation criteria for SaaS applications has moved beyond simply proving that the application can deliver the necessary core functionality, but rather how well can that application fit in with all my other SaaS and on premise products. For SaaS providers, this means it’s time to grow up. If your application can’t share data with a broader set of applications and processes, you will be replaced by an application that does. Integration is now table stakes for SaaS applications.

The challenge for SaaS providers is that every customer’s integration needs are unique. Not only does the combination of applications and data stores that need to be integrated vary from company to company, the nature of the data and how it needs to be shared across functions is also exclusive to each business. For SaaS providers, it’s about making their application “integrate-able” and flexible enough that it can solve every customer’s integration needs.

At the core of any SaaS provider’s integration strategy has to be their application programming interface, or API, as well as the API’s of those applications around them with which they need to integrate. Ensuring that these APIs are designed for integration – meaning they support the many scenarios of data interchange that customers will need and are easy to work with – is essential to having a successful API strategy. SaaS providers with the best APIs for integration understand that the API is just as important as the user interface, in other words, part of your product offering, and needs to be treated with the same level of care and investment.

Attributes of a World-Class Data Integration APOver the course of nearly two decades, Scribe Software has worked with hundreds of software providers and the companies they serve. Through that experience, we’ve come to recognize the attributes of the very best APIs. Generally, APIs are developed to 1) support data level integration between your application and other applications or data sources or 2) enable developers to develop new application functionality on top of or along side your application. Our focus, is on the former.

We define data integration as a process that reacts to changes in a set of separate data stores based on rules. We focus on the attributes that allow for the following key capabilities: the data sharing will be ongoing, will include both insertion, but also extraction of data, and supports evaluation and adherence to governance. The seven attributes listed below will determine if an API provides the necessary capabilities to allow the application to share data. These attributes can be

used in two ways: 1. You can focus on building these attributes into your application’s API if you want to rise above your competition and deliver software that will earn customers’ long-term loyalty because of its ability to share, and 2. You can use these attributes to evaluate an application you want to integrate with to see how easy it will be to integrate that application with your existing infrastructure.

1 – OPEN STANDARDS VERSUS PROPRIETARY ARCHITECTUREOne of the first choices a SaaS provider will make is whether to build the API using open standards—such as representational state transfer (aka REST) or simple object access protocol (aka SOAP)—or create a proprietary architecture. Both approaches can provide a great API but most should opt for open standards. While REST and SOAP can layer on additional overhead to an API design, this is generally overshadowed by the fact that a large percentage of developers who will utilize the API are familiar with these standard interfaces. Open standards maximize the integration capability of the

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software and provide greater freedom to customers. And if a SaaS provider is deciding on a standard today, REST (along with JSON-based data exchange) is currently the preferred choice.

2 – CHANGE DATA CAPTUREChange is the driving force of integration. Each integration begins with the “big change”, when a data store is added to the integration process. When designing an API, understanding the various sources of data, the type of data, volumes and timing constraints must all be considered. Can an initial data load be completed via the API?

After the initial synchronization, ongoing change becomes the force. Therefore a critical function within the SaaS application is the ability to identify the small changes to data. So that only data that has changed since the data source was last integrated can be identified and processed. At a minimum, for all objects a SaaS provider should allow access to a date/time stamp, along with an “updated by” field that identifies the user(s) who made modifications. Integration processes can then periodically poll for all records that have been updated since the last time the record was modified. Designating the user enables the SaaS provider to ignore changes that another application made, which avoids creating an endless loop of integration updates. While the date/time stamp method is straightforward, it does have two major limitations. First, it fails to identify when records are deleted, since those records will no longer show up in any query. And second, polling approaches tax your server (see sections below on Performance and Governance) and can be highly inefficient. One approach to solving this issue is implementing a change publishing capability where users can identify changes they want to capture and then the API publishes those changes to a secure Web services endpoint as they happen.

3 – PERFORMANCE AND EFFICIENCY When it comes to APIs (especially those exposed in a multi-tenant environment as a shared resource), customers typically have high expectations. They want a magic mix of speed, functionality and flexibility. They want the API to provide high throughput (pushing large amounts of data through the API in short time windows) and low latency (lightning fast response time for individual records or requests) while enjoying precise control over the integration business rules. The best way to evaluate an API’s performance and efficiency is to document

the real-world use cases that are important to you and associated performance requirements. Those use cases then serve as the benchmark for the performance standards the API will need to achieve.

Traditionally software makers have been pressured to speed up the rate of data being created or updated in their applications, as this has been the big bottleneck in application-to-application integration scenarios. With the buzz around Big Data, the need to serve up queries of large data sets for analytics and reporting is becoming more and more imperative. A great API will meet performance benchmarks when moving data in both directions.

An API that reduces the number of calls between itself and the API of another application to perform a function is another great characteristic that will address performance and efficiency. Some key ways this is accomplish are:

• Bulk support - This refers to enabling users to request or pass bulk arrays of data through the API. The SaaS provider can then process these requests back on its servers in highly scalable and performant manner. Implementing bulk import or export capabilities can yield record processing speeds that can be 10 to 100 times faster than from a transactional API. In many scenarios, where record-by-record validation isn’t required, this is a highly valuable feature.

• Combination operations - Facilitating combination operations such as “upserts” (updating and inserting all in one API call) enables the API to perform some of the advanced logic required for certain activities, which reduces the number of API calls. However, there is a balance to maintain here; the more customer control that are allowed related to this interaction, the more API calls may be necessary—and the time and expense required for these operations will rise accordingly. For example, a process may require information from a SaaS application prior to determining how to process a record. This run-time level conditional processing might not be achievable utilizing an upsert.

• Message publishing - See the “Change data capture” section above.

• Multi-threading - This enables a single API user to open multiple threads of interaction within the same user session, thus enabling integration processes to operate at much higher speeds. Care should be taken to ensure that the API is “thread-safe” so that separate processes do not trip over one another.

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• Support for both batch and real-time processes – Users of the SaaS applications will have scenarios where they need to integrate large batches of data on a schedule while other use cases will require support for real-time processes. In fact, for the majority of integration scenarios, moving records in batch is easier to implement and meets the business need. While real-time integration can be a bit more complex (as it can involve more complex user workflow and dependencies), there are scenarios where real-time access is necessary and more efficient.

Based on the cost savings from the iPaaS, SaaS Marketing Company went forward with Scribe’s iPaaS approach.

4 – Meta Data DrivenScrSaaS application users are likely to customize and configure the functionality and data design of an application for their particular need. Even so, the SaaS provider wants to encourage developers in their ecosystem to develop solutions that can be used across many customers. Our experience shows that SaaS providers should provide dynamic discovery of each customer’s metadata at run-time when they design the API. Developers can then surface those particular customizations in their tools and set-up wizards to enable customers to quickly tailor the integrated solution to their particular environment. This metadata discovery goes beyond simply providing the objects and fields in the customer’s environment; it should include the relationships between objects, data types, and other attributes (indexes, required, default or picklist values, etc.). By providing this rich metadata discovery, a SaaS provider can leverage the API to the fullest across a diverse customer base.

5 – CONSISTENCY AND OBVIOUSNESSThe API should use standard and consistent naming conventions for objects, attributes, fields, methods, actions, etc. If it doesn’t, it can cause developers a great deal of confusion and frustration. In essence, developers will be forced to learn a new “language” each time they work with one of the SaaS providers solutions. Or, worse still, they’ll end up investing extra effort to re-code everything to resolve the confusion created by the SaaS provider. In short, the API should “speaks for itself” because this is one language barrier that can be a deal breaker.

An example of this is CRUD support. The API should support the

full set of CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations for all relevant data objects within the SaaS application. This baseline capability opens up a wide range of integration scenarios. There may be specialized methods on some objects that go beyond basic CRUD (converting a lead in a CRM system, for example, or merging duplicate contact or company records) that the SaaS provider may need to support. These methods should be implemented generically across all objects so that one consistent set of code can be utilized instead of having to program each object on a one-off basis.

6 – SECURITYIt goes without saying that a great API must safeguard its users. First and foremost, the API must consider authentication to the API in the same way it considers access via the application user interface. The API should have role-based security, i.e., giving API users the same rights and restrictions as application users. The API should have thorough logging of user sessions including who logged in, from what IP address, the actions they took, etc. In this way, a SaaS provider can audit the behavior of the API users and monitor for suspicious or malicious behavior patterns. A great API may also offer delegated authentication methods such as OAuth or Saml versus basic user name and password authentication. This allows the application to be accessed by another without requiring the target application to know the user name and password credentials, dramatically reducing the risk of those credentials being compromised.

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7 – USER EXPERIENCESavvy software providers know that providing great documentation, best practices and tools is part of the complete offering. There are many ways to provide this important support to your ecosystem of developers. For example, the API or the SaaS provider might offer:

• Free, public and open access to the API.

• Great error handling is key for designing integrations using an API. When creating integrations, “generic” errors provide little to no value. Providing via the API that the call failed because THIS specific field had THAT specific issue allows someone to read the error, understand the problem and correct that process.

• Documentation and resources designed by developers especially for developers--resources that are heavy on meaningful and relevant sample code. The SaaS provider should embrace the fact that developers like to figure things out on their own.

• Access to free developer accounts with minimal restrictions. This allows developers to create, test, demonstrate and support real-life customer scenarios.

• A very strong support site (and/or forums) where subject matter experts can share their knowledge and experience, where internal and external developers can go to hold discussions and post questions and answers, etc.

• Certification or validation programs that help others leverage and promote the API’s integration capabilities.

ClosingWith enterprises increasing the number of applications they have in use, APIs have become a critical enabler of data flow across the enterprise and, therefore, of business agility. Those APIs that have the traits listed in this paper have the potential to be great by enabling fast and easy data flow between applications. The quality of an application’s API, especially that API’s integration capabilities, should be an important part of every application selection process moving forward. The quality of the API’s integration capabilities is a critical factor in the long-term success of the SaaS application and will drive customer loyalty. For SaaS providers, this means that they should treat the API’s integration capabilities as a core product capability and not an afterthought of the total product offering. After all, the quality and functionality of every tool and feature layered on top of the API depends on the quality of the API itself. A great API, therefore, enables the SaaS application to deliver more value to its users and will establish the SaaS application as a mission critical component within the user’s technology infrastructure.

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About Scribe OnlineScribe Online is a high performance, iPaaS that allows you to rapidly integrate, replicate, or migrate data between your critical business applications and data sources regardless of whether they are run in the cloud, on premise or in a hosted environment.

Available as a secure, multi-tenant and cloud-based service Scribe Online offers built-in connectivity to a broad range of business applications. Using Scribe Online’s intuitive graphical interface, you can quickly and affordably create custom connections between your marketing, sales, support, and finance applications such as Salesforce, Microsoft® Dynamics CRM, NetSuite, Oracle, HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua, Silverpop, Microsoft® Excel, Microsoft® SQL Server, MySQL, On24, and Citrix®Go-to-Webinar.

As the experience of SaaS Marketing Company shows, Scribe Online offers a number of long-term, strategic benefits vs. custom coding to APIs. In particular, the platform’s benefits span the entire integration lifecycle, including the design, build, deploy, run, and, even commercialization stages. Key features such as the “self documenting” graphical development environment, a full debugger, collaboration features that allow you to better manage integration projects, and a management console for tracking all your integrations, bring you lifecycle management benefits such as:

• Simplified API Management – A large library of business applications are already integrated with Scribe Online and that library is expanding continuously. The unique characteristics of each application’s proprietary API are exposed by Scribe Online in a single, consistent, easy-to-use interface. So instead of learning dozens of APIs, you can quickly create custom integrations between any of these applications by simply working with Scribe Online’s drag and drop mapping interfaces.

• Shorter deployment & Faster time to market – Scribe Online offers out-of-the-box connectivity to applications, drag and drop development capability, reusable components, collaboration capabilities, and solid debug tools that will allow you to create and deploy integrations more quickly.

• Lower total cost of ownership – Regular Scribe updates to critical application connectors, a self-documenting development environment and reusable components allow you to minimize long-term maintenance costs.

• Faster response to run-time issues – A unified management console and well-documented, graphical integrations from the product’s self-documenting development environment, help you track all your integrations, pinpoint run-time issues, and reduce debug and down time.

• Staffing flexibility – Scribe Online’s design environment and management tools are easy to use and easy to learn allowing you to more easily change team member responsibilities. You can switch the person responsible for maintaining or updating the integrations and involve people at different skill levels, such as analysts and developers, to create, run, and maintain integrations.

• Agile customization of integrations – A capability to integrate custom fields and deployment tools can help you customize an integration for a specific business group or customer. If you are selling integration services or deploying integrations on behalf of different business units, shortening this time can have a major impact on your long term costs.

• Build Once, Connect to Many – If you need to integrate with an application not currently connected to Scribe Online, you can still say “Yes” much more readily because you can utilize Scribe’s Connector Development Kit (CDK), which includes source code, documentation, and guidance, to easily connect that application to Scribe Online as well. Once you have built that connector, you can use Scribe Online’s drag-and-drop mapping capabilities to connect that application to every other application connected to Scribe Online.

To try Scribe Online, simply register for the free 15-day trial and you are on your way. Free video help, user guides, samples and examples are available with your trial. Our concierge is ready to assist you with your trial and to help you select the complementary connectors and StarterPaks that are right for your business.