iPaaS
Integration Platform as a Service
You can rent an online service that connects your business software so information moves between the programs without anyone retyping it: an order placed in your shop appears in your warehouse system, and the invoice appears in your accounting package. You set up the connections on the service instead of paying someone to write code for each pair of programs. That kind of service is called an iPaaS, short for integration platform as a service.
You will meet two ideas. A direct integration links two specific products and is usually built and maintained by one of the two vendors. An iPaaS sits in the middle and can link many, which helps when you use more than a couple of tools or change one of them.
What it costs you is attention: someone has to own the connections, watch for failures and fix them when an app changes. Ask who is alerted when an order fails to arrive, and how quickly.
In practice
An online shop uses a webshop, a shipping tool and an accounting package. A rule on the iPaaS says: when an order is paid in the webshop, create the shipment in the shipping tool and post the sale in accounting. If the shipping tool is down, a good iPaaS retries and tells the owner.
Further reading
Ready to see BizBloqs on your own process?
Book a demo and we will walk your warehouse and order flow end to end — inbound, storage, picking, shipping, returns — and tell you honestly what BizBloqs would change.
Two questions about your own operation
How many of your articles sit in a pick location they empty less than once a month?
Part one: Laying out a warehouse does not start with the racking
After your last integration, how many systems hold a stock quantity for the same item? Name them.