Madeactual
Systems integration

What should a systems integration assessment cover?

Before choosing middleware or writing an API client, define the responsibility of the handoff and what must happen when ordinary assumptions fail.

Business ownership

  • What outcome does the handoff support?
  • Who owns the source, destination, and exception queue?
  • Which system wins when records disagree?

Interfaces and access

  • Are supported APIs, events, exports, files, or database interfaces available?
  • What authentication, authorization, rate limits, and vendor approvals apply?
  • Which environments and test accounts exist?

Data contract

  • What fields, identifiers, formats, enumerations, and relationships move?
  • How are duplicates, updates, deletions, and historical records handled?
  • Which sensitive data should not cross the boundary?

Timing and reliability

  • Is the transfer synchronous, event-driven, scheduled, or manual?
  • What latency is actually required?
  • How are idempotency, retry, ordering, and partial failure handled?

Validation and reconciliation

  • What makes a record valid?
  • Where do rejected or ambiguous records appear?
  • How can an operator compare systems and safely retry?

Monitoring and change

Define useful alerts, health evidence, audit history, vendor-version monitoring, credential rotation, deployment ownership, and a procedure for changing the contract. An integration without visible exceptions is an operational blind spot.