Connect your systems

Setting up an integration is three jobs in order: establish the connection, decide what crosses it, and prove it works against the real system on the other end rather than against a test harness of your own.

The mapping is the important one. It translates field names, and it is also where field ownership stops being an agreement and becomes enforced. A field you do not map cannot be overwritten, which makes the mapping the cheapest protection you have against a nightly feed flattening work somebody did by hand.

Punchout gets its own article because it is set up per customer rather than once per platform, and because the technical connection is the smaller half of the work.

• Connect a system: credentials, endpoints and the first handshake.
• Field mapping: translating their field names into yours.
• Set up a punchout: channel, assortment, credentials and the test round.