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“These are the times that try (our) souls.”  When Thomas Paine penned that over 250 years ago, he knew little of the coronavirus. But as true as it was 250 years ago when war broke out, it is true for us today as we’re trying so hard to adapt ourselves to remote work and virtual collaboration.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a trying time for all of us. But these times have also shown how resilient and adaptable we are as a human race. We have witnessed the heroic actions of our front-line responders, as they risk their lives to battle this pandemic. We see the many volunteers who have stepped up to help their community and encourage their neighbor’s in these times of crisis. 

We’ve also seen how flexible and innovative companies have become in adapting to the need for their entire workforce to work remotely as entire cities have shut down.

For some companies, it’s a scramble as they try and figure out the best ways to implement a remote business model. For others that have been quietly performing remote work, it’s been a struggle as they quickly scale and adapt their business processes for 100% remote work.

 At the initial stages of this outbreak, many wondered if the Internet infrastructure was capable of scaling the massive demand required for remote work. There were some fears that the entire Internet would completely crash because it couldn’t handle the workload. Fortunately, about two months into the crisis, we’ve had our answer: our infrastructure has been able to handle the increased workload just fine.

Even before the pandemic struck, many corporations were well on their way to implementing some sort of remote work structure. The success of so many companies with a quick adaptation to remote work on such a large scale means that remote work will become the new normal for the foreseeable future.

The ABCs of Effective Remote Work 

While some companies have been early adopters of the remote workplace concept, for many managers and employees alike, setting up a productive remote workplace is a new and perhaps a daunting challenge. Telling people just to ‘go work at home until this blows over’ is a recipe for disaster. Setting up a remote workplace requires careful planning, collaboration, and accountability by everyone if the remote team is going to be successful.

Communication in such an environment is critical. No longer can co-workers just walk down the hall to the next cubicle to have walk-in chats or ask questions. Ad hoc meetings down the hall in the conference room aren’t possibly longer. Unless you have a continuous intercom type of solution and require people to be at their remote desks continuously, most of your communications will be asynchronous.  

Meetings will have to be scheduled ahead of time, so people can join the meeting from various time zones. To maximize time, meeting checklists should be sent out before meetings to optimize the items discussed. 

Team collaboration is an essential part of an effective remote work environment. Fortunately, there are many tools available to assist with team collaboration.

Facebook’s Workplace.com is but one of many good collaboration platforms that allow your teams to collaborate in a shared workspace. Additionally, other automated tools such as Zoom, Skype, WebEx, and Blue Jeans enable remote workers to share documents and collaborate in face-to-face meetings in real-time.

For as effective as some of these collaborative tools can be for remote workers, they are ill-equipped for the management of business process workflows in a remote environment. They don’t allow teams to focus on phases of a project, priority of tasks to complete, work that’s in progress, posting comments on specific tasks, or tracking the percent of completed tasks.  

What’s needed are applications and platforms that will allow your team to collaborate on specific tasks in a workflow, such as a Scrum or Kanban board. This is best done by a collaborative work management system.

Many companies may be familiar with collaborative tools that can enhance remote workflow capability.  However, for companies that are just beginning to embrace the reality of working remotely, there is considerable temptation to reach for a familiar office automation tool to help them – spreadsheets. While spreadsheets are great individual productivity tools, they break down in a collaborative environment. 

Let’s briefly look at some of the issues.

Why Spreadsheets are not Work Management Systems

Whether you use Excel, Open Office, LibreOffice, Google Sheets, Numbers, or another spreadsheet application, they all fall short when it comes to enhancing the collaborative use of data.

While you can have spreadsheets perform many functions, their collaborative limitations include:

• They’re not truly multi-user.  Although it is possible for multiple users to open applications like Excel if they are hosted on a collaborative platform like Microsoft’s SharePoint application, even the best spreadsheets on the market do not handle multi-user updates well.
• They don’t support asynchronous dialogs. As spreadsheets were built primarily for single users, they do not have any collaborative support for asynchronous dialogues or discussions between users.
• They don’t support notifications. If a co-worker wanted updates to a spreadsheet, they would have to either send the spreadsheet in an email for your update, or post the spreadsheet to a shared location, and send you a separate notification by email or messaging service that the spreadsheet was ready for an update.
• They lack workflows.  While enterprise-level spreadsheet applications could be programmed for simple workflows using macros, even the best custom-built workflow macros are not capable of handling multi-user functionality.
• Other issues include:

-Difficulty in creating task relationships.

-Trying to make attachments, while possible, is very awkward.

-Changes are difficult to track as spreadsheets do not have built-in logging capabilities.

-Time tracking is complex. It would require developing complex functions or macros.

Most organizations that are thrust into a remote work environment for the first time will find that for all the reasons listed above, spreadsheets are a poor choice for collaborative productivity.  

Examples of Work Management Systems for Remote Work

Fortunately, there are some great tools for boosting company productivity that was built with a remote collaborative environment in mind. 

These tools enhance business processes and workflows by allowing collaboration on a common task list – wherever they are working from. Properly structured, they can ensure the tasks that need the most attention are moved to the top of a task list. They actually ensure that your projects are on track. They also provide easy visualization of work in progress and allow optimization of the entire workplace.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the best work management systems that help you facilitate your workflow.

Jira

Jira is a collaborative software tool that advertises itself as the project management tool for agile teams. While there are certainly many other software tools available for agile project management, Jira has certainly become one of the more popular collaborative tools for engaging remote agile teams.

Jira has many built-in features that make it an ideal work management system for agile teams. Among its features is the ability to quickly build scrum or Kanban boards that allow teams to quickly develop the complete iterative planning cycles for software development.

Jira Scrum and Kanban Boards, like the one shown above, are built with collaboration in mind. Team members can add tasks (or cards) to each phase of the Kanban board so that everyone on the team can have a complete picture of work in progress at any given time.  

Teams can also drill down into each task and add data to each task such as due-dates, percentage of task completion, description of the task, activities, issues, etc. Additionally, these cards make it easy to add attachments or links to each one of the cards, giving team members complete visibility on all tasks and subtasks related to the development process.

The Jira platform can also include a collaborative service desk application for use by a remote customer service team. This application can be accessed from anywhere in the world for technicians with the appropriate permissions. Service tickets can be tracked, assigned, monitored, and resolved by remote service desk personnel from anywhere in the world. 

Trello

Trello is another popular collaboration tool that allows remote workers to collaborate on several projects by using a Kanban-style card system. Originally developed as a free application, its ability to quickly and intuitively develop project boards is one of Tello’s main strengths. 

These project boards can be set up as list categories and task cards placed under each category.  Like Jira, the cards are feature-rich and can be used to track activities, due dates, and comments for each task. Additionally, whenever a task is modified, automatic notifications are sent to anyone who is invited to the board or task, as appropriate.

Another handy feature of Trello is the ability to quickly move cards between categories in a collaborative environment.  When any user moves these tasks from one category to the next, everyone who is logged into the board can instantly see the changes.

After a brief kick-off meeting and a discussion of the major tasks of this project, the project manager was able to quickly move all the tasks to the proper project phase, as shown below.  From this point forward, the team members responsible for each task will be able to drill down into the tasks and provide any updates as necessary, as shown below.

The free version of Trello provides all this functionality, but the standard and premium versions provide even more functionality for teams, like advanced project reports and ‘power-ups’ that provide the ability to integrate other applications into Trello for advanced remote capability, including integration with popular collaborative apps like Slack, Google Drive, and Google hangouts. Trello is a well thought out collaborative tool that allows small teams to collaborate well, and scales well to larger companies, as well.

ServiceNow

ServiceNow is another collaboration platform. The strength of this platform is that it “enables the digital workflows” for the individual worker and the entire organization itself. ServiceNow is a collaborative platform that is widely used across many different economic sectors; Government, HealthCare, Human Resources, and Managed Service.

 Providers are but a few of the sectors that use ServiceNow to enable their remote workforce. Not only does it allow for collaboration on standard or customized business workflows, but the richness of this platform allows companies to rapidly build portals to collaborate in real-time with their external customers, as shown in the example above.

The ServiceNow Platform marries up workflow management with service management across a wide array of corporate sectors. It allows the company to use workflow templates ‘out of the box,’ or a company can choose to build their own workflow applications through an end-user interface that doesn’t require complex software coding.

This combination of real-time portals, custom workflows, and remote collaboration has made ServiceNow a crucial player in helping mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, Los Angeles used the ServiceNow platform to conduct COVID-19 testing around the city. The customer-facing ServiceNow portal was used to provide the 16 million citizens of Los Angeles with the ability to confirm their symptoms and make appointments at any one of the city’s remote drive-through testing locations to test for the virus. 

This collaborative application has been crucial in Los Angeles’ ‘test, trace, and isolate’ program, which has proven effective in halting the spread of this pandemic. All of this was done by rapidly implementing the end-to-end ServiceNow workflows for testing employees and citizens alike.

Azure DevOps

Another useful platform for the remote workplace is Microsoft’s Azure DevOps application.  Formally known as Microsoft Team Foundations Server, this enterprise application allows any remote team of software developers to collaborate in real-time on all the stages of software development.

As its Team Foundation’s predecessor, Azure DevOps allows remote teams of software developers to remotely check-in and check-out software files into a shared repository, which Azure DevOps calls ‘Repos.’  Azure DevOps can be used to collaboratively control builds, releases, and deployments.  

The Steps of Deploying a System in Remote Work

Jira, Trello, ServiceNow, and Azure DevOps are just some of the collaborative platforms and applications that your work teams can use for work management systems that go beyond simple visual and presentation applications. 

From simpler applications such as Trello to the complexity of ServiceNow, they all allow you to optimize your teams’ productivity. Whether its collaborative development of project plans, Scrum, or Kanban boards that give teams visibility of work in progress or well-designed customer-facing portals that allow customer interface, these platforms help overcome the challenges of a remote work environment.

These applications can be easily set up and implemented. While some of these platforms may require administrative training to get the full advantage of their features, others can be set up immediately with little or no training. 

As an example, the board interface of Trello is so intuitive that project plans and agile iterations can be developed within minutes of first using the application. 

These tools are great enablers of a very productive remote workforce. However, the tools are only one of the enablers; the discipline of the remote workforce is just as important as the best collaborative tool. Once workflows and business processes have been implemented, teams must have the internal discipline to follow agreed-upon business practices.  

This means that the workforce is properly trained on the processes, and a system of accountability is put in place to ensure everyone is equally productive. This requires some careful management planning and a phased rollout approach to ensure that everything is running accordingly.

Working with Multiple Companies 

These platforms and applications are great tools for allowing companies to quickly transition to a remote work environment. They provide companies with a way to remotely collaborate in real-time on tasks requiring specific data and information exchanges that aren’t possible with video conferencing tools. They are one of the key facilitators to optimizing your remote workforce in these times of forced lockdowns and orders to stay and work from home.

While they are great tools to optimize your internal processes, their efficiencies usually stop at the borders of the company. They’re generally lost the moment that the company needs to integrate their data and information exchanges with one or more external partners. In many cases, the move to a remote workforce only serves to amplify these data integration problems.   

The daunting challenge is to integrate these systems remotely without interrupting the internal workflows. The process of integrating the external data and information exchanges without affecting internal company business processes was previously discussed in the Journey of Software Integration blog post. 

When it comes to the right remote cross-company integration solution, autonomy is key. You need to have complete control over what, when, and with whom you share specific data. It’s also crucial to be able to work in your own familiar environment especially when your network of connections gets wider and multiple companies with different work management systems get involved. 

Moreover, configurations evolve. How do you deal with the situation where a workflow changes on one end? How do you accommodate this in the configuration of the solution, and at what stage is such change introduced? It should be possible to change the configuration from both ends without affecting the sync with your partner(s).

What’s more, it is a question of the solution’s flexibility. Is the scripting intuitive enough to allow you to configure a variety of use cases? The solution should be flexible in a way that either end can easily change their sync requirements to adapt them to their workflow and collaborations. 

With cross-company integrations, you never know what future requirements you will encounter. For instance, if you have an incident-to-issue mapping where you have 150 projects on the Jira end (this is an actual case), and new projects are added on the fly on the Jira side.  How do you implement an efficient dispatching capability that is easy to maintain?

And the right solution should for sure be reliable. Systems go down – that’s a fact. You can imagine that your partner is upgrading their Jira. How do you ensure that all the changes are synced in the same order as they happened? So let’s list reliability as one of the key factors to take into consideration when buying a third-party cross-company integration solution.

Exalate as a cross-company integration solution was built to meet these criteria and to solve the thorniest integration issues. It allows you to focus on optimizing processes within your company while seamlessly integrating with your external partners exactly where and when you need to integrate, even in a remote environment.

It gives your company the flexibility, reliability, and autonomy you need to successfully execute cross-company integrations anywhere in the world while guaranteeing your security. Check out Exalate security and architecture whitepaper. 

By solving these issues, Exalate lets you focus on your number one priority; running your business. 

Recommended Reading:

• How an Innovative Fintech Startup Uses Exalate to Fine-Tune Collaboration Between Teams
• How WirelessCar Uses Exalate to Streamline Collaboration with Leading Automotive Brands
• The Project Management Blueprint for Agile Collaboration Between Teams
• How to Get the Most out of Your Workflow Integration
• Automated Integration: A Key to Scalable and Agile Business Operations

We often use various applications, like CRMs, ERPs, etc. to share common projects, statuses, or workloads with other teams, not often physically co-located. You might already be familiar with Jira, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk, and the like. These applications are useful for time tracking, handling workflows, managing project statuses, etc. 

However, teams often face challenges while dealing with these multiple applications. Handling data communication between these applications using diverse technologies is one such challenge.

Integration plays a major role in enabling communication across applications leading towards a holistic digital transformation of your company. You can now connect with your partners, suppliers, or vendors, possibly using a completely different application. We like to call this “cross-company integration”. An eventual outcome of this cross-company integration is a globally connected network of companies striving towards common business goals. 

But when it comes to multiple companies and collaborations amongst them, you need to tread carefully. In this article, we present our vision of a “Global network of connected companies” while discussing all that there’s to know about cross-company integrations. 

So Where Did It All Start? 

Before the commercialization of the Internet, companies were oblivious to integration and never felt the need for it. 

Then the Internet boomed, and suddenly, everyone wanted to digitize their daily work. The means to achieve this digitalization using software applications, those that helped automate business processes, structure information moving through a company, enhance decision-making capacities, and optimize results, was felt more than ever. 

Task management systems like project management tools, issue trackers, and enterprise-wide applications were founded to fulfill this desire. They helped streamline collaboration within teams, manage workflows, optimize cycle times, and allow for timely escalations. The result was increased productivity and efficiency.

And Task Management Systems Multiplied… 

Then, as a natural progression, there were way too many such applications. Teams rapidly adopted them due to their exponential growth. People happily managed their day-to-day work, set deadlines, and met them smoothly. Because, essentially, that’s what was meant to achieve in the first place. 

There came a time when people realized that they were working fine within a single team. However, when it came to collaborating with another team using a different application from theirs, they faced issues. 

How do they communicate with a system that has completely different technologies, APIs, deployment models, data mappings, and workflows? 

They needed automatic, accurate, real-time information exchange. 

The result of this need was integration. However, it is an uphill task. 

Integration between teams involves aligning processes and mapping data between diverse systems while keeping the internal workflows intact. It must also be easy to maintain, scale, and secure. 

This is a huge undertaking, even with teams located within a single organization belonging to different departments. What about teams you want to integrate with who are outside the company? All of the things we talked about just multiplied in complexity. And what about security? That’s exponentially more complicated with a cross-company integration. 

And this is precisely the reason why we want to share this journey with you. To make it smoother and better.

The Cross-Company Integration Journey 

Companies benefit by connecting and collaborating with each other. Consider a supply chain organization where a retailer generally depends on other product suppliers, who in turn, may be dependent on different independent suppliers. 

For all of these companies to seamlessly work together and move products and services between each other, integration is needed. You can track delivery issues with a lot less friction by integrating the quality management system with the task-tracking systems of the suppliers: a classic example of cross-company integration. 

So, let’s discuss how this cross-company journey started evolving by understanding the ways in which companies try to connect with other companies in the first place. 

Manual Copy-pasting of Information

The first resort is to manually exchange information via phone calls, emails, copy-pasting, messenger apps, and countless meetings. But all this results in inaccurate, misplaced, or altered information. Statuses remain unclear, service levels are missed, and even wrong escalations happen at times. 

The manual method has some disadvantages but is still adopted for a variety of reasons 

• reluctance to invest in integration strategies, 
• data security concerns, 
• not enough understanding of data needs,
• governance issues, or 
• it seems to be the most viable option.
  

However, every step of this process is prone to manual errors and can ultimately defeat the purpose of integration. 

Sharing the Environment

Another common approach companies follow is to share their environments with one another, like adding new users to their systems or allowing access to their instances. This may seem logical at the beginning, but it is not always convenient. Imagine having to log into an unfamiliar environment every time you need a piece of information. 

There is also a high risk of exposing sensitive information to unauthorized users. Proprietary data is prone to risk, not to mention GDPR requirements.  

Native Integrations Between Apps

Software vendors have since long recognized the need for allowing native integration between popular applications. You can easily set up a Jira Zendesk integration natively, for instance. 

You can use such native integrations that are built for common scenarios with predefined templates if your use case is simple and straightforward. They are also easier and quicker to set up. For instance, you can automate a unidirectional flow between Jira and Zendesk, such that when a high-priority ticket arrives in Zendesk, it automatically triggers a dev issue in Jira.   

However, over time, it does not allow for customization and lacks the flexibility an integration demands. 

Build Your Own Integration 

The next obvious step that companies take is to contemplate the build-vs-buy decision.

With multiple companies involved in the integration process, many choose to build the integration in-house due to ample availability of technical expertise and resources, covered expenditure, fulfilled data security requirements, and a custom-tailored integration. 

Another reason why companies also choose to build in-house is the lack of knowledge of integration solutions that offer the flexibility and automation they desire. 

At first glance, this seems to be a better proposition, and that might be true, but only initially. The upfront costs of building an integration might be relatively low, but with time, maintenance costs go off the roof. 

Also, since integrations mature with time and so do their requirements, fulfilling them with built-in integrations can be time-consuming and costly, putting additional stress on critical technical resources. 

Moreover, internal teams need to be more diligent in maintaining documentation. So when the key talent leaves, the system becomes unwieldy to continue. 

3rd-party Integration Solution Providers

Perhaps the most logical outcome of all our discussion here is using third-party integration solutions. 

Firstly, they are experts in what they do, so getting an integration up and running is faster. 

Secondly, they provide the architecture necessary for getting the information flowing between the organizations and alleviate the issues of having to do that on your own. They also provide connections between hybrid cloud environments like connecting a cloud instance with an on-premise one. 

Thirdly, they have elaborate training, support, and documentation handy to answer any or all of your integration questions. 

Fourthly, since integrations are their bread and butter, newer, custom-made, and complex (or advanced) integration requirements can be implemented without any additional hassle. They support diverse integration methods like webhooks, APIs, middleware, etc. 

The initial cost of using third-party integration tools might seem higher, but with time the maintenance and customization costs are drastically reduced. 

iPaas is a type of third-party integration solution provider that is gaining a lot of traction. 

iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) Solution

iPaaS (Integration platform as a service) offers cloud-based platforms and services specifically designed to integrate various third-party applications and systems. 

These platforms help connect different software applications, services, and data sources, allowing organizations to automate workflows, share data, and improve overall business processes. 

iPaaS providers typically offer a range of features and tools, such as pre-built connectors, low-code/ no-code development environments, centralized management dashboards, monitoring capabilities, and security controls. iPaaS vendors are a subset of third-party integration solution providers, focussing specifically on cloud-based integration platforms and services. 

We can envision a lot of possibilities with the right third-party integration solution. One such possibility is to develop your integration network with your partners. 

For that to happen, let’s discuss the types of networks that exist. 

Types of Cross-Company Networks

Companies establish different types of connections between the applications they use. It can be a direct connection between systems or can be via a standard, central UI. 

Peer-to-Peer Integration

The first step companies usually adopt is to create a one-on-one integration connection between themselves and their integration partners. It essentially means you have a point-to-point connection with a single other company. This option is cost-effective and simple to implement. 

However, the simplicity of a peer-to-peer connection is also a disadvantage. It is difficult to scale this integration network.

Star Networks

Star connections are also called a hub and spoke model, a popular approach that many companies adopt. 

The hub works as a central entity. Other entities connect to the hub as spokes. So, every single company has a direct connection to the hub. Note that connections between the spokes are possible, but then the star network becomes a meshed network.

ESB (Enterprise Service Bus)

Sometimes entities can also be connected in a serial or a train-like fashion. Its simplicity makes it easy to adopt, but this type of arrangement can create inefficiencies in the workflow and can be difficult to manage. 

Meshed Network

A sophisticated version of a peer-to-peer connection is creating a mesh network. In this type, every company can have multiple connections, all of them connected in a mesh pattern.

So you no longer have the limitation to connect to a single other company. This kind of network definitely holds the promise of optimal workflows across all of the integrations. 

To implement these various network models and connections, we saw why using an integration solution is the best option. 

However, it’s also important to understand how these solutions have evolved over the years and how modern enterprises can leverage them for cross-company integrations. 

Evolution of Integration Technologies

The evolution and rise of modern integration solutions can be traced back to the increasing complexity of IT systems, the growth of digital technologies, and the need for organizations to streamline their operations, improve efficiency, and deliver better customer experiences. 

Early System Integration

Before the widespread use of the Internet and digital technologies, organizations primarily relied on point-to-point integration solutions to connect different software and hardware systems. This was implemented using EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). 

These integrations were often custom-built and costly to maintain. They lacked scalability and flexibility.

The Rise of Internet and Web Services

The advent of the Internet and the development of web service standards like SOAP and REST revolutionized integration. Web services allowed applications to communicate over the internet using standardized protocols, making it easier to connect systems across different platforms and locations. This led to the emergence of SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture).

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and Middleware

ESBs and middleware platforms became popular as they provided a centralized hub for integrating various applications and services. ESBs allowed for message routing, transformation, and mediation, making integrations more manageable. However, ESBs were often seen as complex and costly.

Cloud Computing

The rise of cloud computing introduced new integration challenges. Organizations needed to integrate cloud-based applications residing on private clouds, public clouds, or hybrid clouds. Cloud-based Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) solutions emerged to address this need, offering scalable, cloud-native integration capabilities. 

The proliferation of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) at this time fueled the API economy, making it easier for organizations to expose their services and data to external partners and developers. API management platforms and API gateways became critical components of modern integration solutions.

Microservices and Containers

The adoption of microservices architecture and containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes led to a shift in integration patterns. Integrations became more fine-grained, with each microservice responsible for its own data and interactions. Tools like service meshes and container orchestration platforms added a new layer of complexity but also enhanced flexibility.

The evolution and the future of modern integration solutions have been driven by the changing technology landscape, the need for greater agility and scalability, and the growing importance of data and real-time interactions. 

The Future of Integration 

Let’s peer into the crystal ball and glimpse what the future holds for integration. 

Low-Code and No-Code Integration

To democratize integration and reduce the reliance on highly specialized developers, low-code and no-code integration platforms have gained popularity. These platforms allow business users to create integrations with minimal coding, accelerating digital transformation efforts. 

Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Integration

As organizations increasingly adopt multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategies, the need for seamless integration between on-premises and cloud-based systems continues to grow. Modern integration solutions provide the flexibility to connect disparate environments, giving rise to HIPs.

HIP (Hybrid Integration Platform) 

HIP (Hybrid Integration Platform) enables organizations to seamlessly integrate cloud-based applications (public/ private) and on-premise ones and makes them work as a single unit. 

It works on two basic principles:

1. Provide a way to handle the different protocols every application has. For instance, HTTP, TCP, etc. 
2. Convert data into a common format that is understandable and makes sense to the integrating systems. For instance, JSON, XML, etc. 

AI and Machine Learning Integration 

The integration of AI and machine learning capabilities into business processes is becoming more common. Modern integration solutions often include AI-driven features for data transformation, prediction, and automation.

Next-generation middleware, based on AI capabilities will ensure accurate mapping, transformation, and business process automation between systems. 

However, you need to be mindful of the adverse effects of this AI boom. For instance, it’s important to avoid AI hallucinations, resulting in incorrect or unacceptable assumptions or answers to integration problems. To work on the complexities of integrations, use AI to actively research and come up with the best approach. 

Exalate: A Cross-company Integration Solution

Today’s integration solutions need to be more agile, distributed, scalable, and user-friendly than ever before, enabling organizations to connect to external partners and applications without any hassle. The solution they need must also rapidly adapt to changing business requirements and handle the ever-evolving data volume.  

In this world of rising integration solutions, the answer to all of the requirements above is Exalate. 

Exalate is a modern integration solution that has some unique features and is a perfect fit for a cross-company (or intra-company) integration scenario. It provides uni or bi-directional synchronization in real time between different applications like Jira, ServiceNow, GitHub, Azure DevOps, Zendesk, Salesforce, etc. 

Some key Exalate features are: 

• It can be deployed on the cloud as well as on your on-premise applications, paving the way for hybrid integrations. 
• It is the only solution that supports decentralized integration. 

Decentralized integration allows you to independently control the information you share and receive. This is contradictory to the usual centralized integration architecture that forces you to control integration settings through an uncommon, often unfamiliar UI. It’s also necessary to maintain any integration changes in the common interface (UI). 

With decentralized integration, you can decide what to send and receive without keeping the destination admin in the loop. Well, involve them the first time you set up the integration, but after that, you have complete control over your incoming and outgoing information.
In a cross-company scenario, this can be a huge differentiating factor. For instance, workflows are hugely specific within a single company, and it becomes difficult to orchestrate them with another company with a different workflow. Neither of them wants to modify their workflows or build a new one while still wanting to get the information they need within their application. With a decentralized integration solution, each company initially contributes toward setting the expectations of the workflow. And once that is done, each side can independently make decisions without worrying about how it affects the destination. 

• It has a distributed architecture that ensures the integrating systems are loosely coupled and that the admins will not mess up each other’s sync. This increases the scalability and maintainability of your integration. For this reason, Exalate needs to be installed on both sides of the integration.
• It offers a no-code/ low-code integration approach. 

The low-code approach uses an intuitive Groovy-based scripting engine that comes with sync processors to control incoming and outgoing information independently on both sides. These processors can map, transform, filter, and sync any information, the way you want. This scripting capability allows Exalate to accommodate even the most complex integrations. 

• It has a reliable transactional sync queue that allows it to resume synchronization from the point of interruption in case of downtimes or system failures.  

How Exalate Envisions Growth Towards A Worldwide Network?

At Exalate, we acknowledge that integrations are complex, and so we make them simple for our customers. 

Exalate for a P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Connection

If you are an organization that wants to connect to a single other department, team, or company you can establish, what we like to call, a P2P connection. 

For instance, your dev team works in Jira and your customer support team relies on Zendesk. With the help of an Exalate P2P connection, you can connect your dev and support teams, so they always remain on the same page. If you choose to automate your dev workflow or streamline the customer support process, all of your needs will be handled. The no-code and low-code modes in Exalate allow you to implement basic to advanced integration scenarios. 

Book a demo with an integration engineer to see this in action. 

Exalate for MSPs

If you’re an MSP or MSSP, we know you struggle with disconnected customer environments, waste time and effort in manual data exchange, have security concerns, and want to maintain a balance between growth and service quality as you scale. 

The Exalate for MSPs is an A-Z service that handles tickets, issues, incidents, or tasks integration across your teams and organizations. With this program, you can expect enhanced service management, efficient incident management, enabled cross-company project management, and much more. 

We implement end-to-end integration with your partners or customers, offer dedicated support and maintenance, tailor-make your connections for legacy systems, and ensure top-notch security and stability. 

Discuss your integration use case with us and find out how Exalate can help you grow faster and at scale.

What after this? Do we stop? Or do we dream bigger? 

Can your cross-company integration effort as an MSP lead to a global network of connected companies? 

A network where all the companies have streamlined communication between each other and information exchange takes place at the flip of a switch. 

A Global Network of Connected Companies

At Exalate, we envision a global network of connected companies. 

Imagine an MSP operates its own integrated network which involves a range of applications catering to specific business functions. The network can be any of the ones we discussed, like peer-to-peer, hub and spoke, etc.  

Such an MSP wishes to integrate with another independent (or outsourced) entity either one of its customers, partners, vendors, or suppliers. Each of these external parties operates its own integrated network with a different technology stack. 

There is a need to connect these fragmented networks that are fully distributed with no central operational control. Each system in the network is motivated to ensure there is end-to-end connectivity of every part of the network. 

Such a connected network of companies ensures integration is an intrinsic business strategy rather than an afterthought. It blurs organizational boundaries and not only integrates information but also people, ideas, and processes. 

The journey toward creating this global network of connected companies is a path paved with innovation, collaboration, and adaptability. Exalate will ensure you reach the end of this journey and continue to thrive in an interconnected world. 

What Lies Ahead? 

At our core, integration is part of our DNA, and with great enthusiasm, we venture into the dynamic realm of ChatGPT. We grasp the significance of staying at the forefront of innovation and are currently delving into the possibilities AI technology offers to enhance Exalate’s capabilities and reach a wider audience. Our unwavering commitment lies in executing these advancements effectively, precisely, and with utmost security in mind.

Exalate AI Services

We are embarking on three primary AI-driven initiatives:

1. Exalate for ChatGPT: We’re infusing AI into our support portal to elevate the efficiency and performance of our support services and operational processes.

2. Assisted Integration: Within Exalate Script Mode, we’re creating a feature that operates as a collaborative co-pilot for Github, simplifying integration tasks.

3. Auto-generated Integration: We’re charting a course to introduce a feature that enables you to present your use case and initiate integration with a single click, while AI takes care of the rest. This promises to streamline the integration creation and maintenance process.

Conclusion

Integration (intra or cross-company) is a humongous task in itself. The complexities and requirements of such an integration are more stringent and advanced in a cross-company setup. Security needs grow manifold and they need to be handled by some advanced features. 

We saw how decentralized integration with advanced integration capabilities can help alleviate these security concerns and yet provide autonomy in handling your data the way you want. 

Exalate is one such integration solution that has been around for a while and is an expert in decentralized integration. It is also flexible enough to handle the deepest integration requirements via its scripting engine. And more than that, it helps you put integration at the forefront of all your business needs. 

And at the end of it all, it stands by its vision of creating a global network of connected companies. 

Recommended Reading:

• Exploring the Build vs. Buy Integration Debate
• How to Get the Most out of Your Workflow Integration
• ITSM Integration: Simplify Your IT Services Like Never Before
• The Challenges of Software Integration (Podcast)

Project management skills in the evolving software development space have an increasingly demanding role. Project managers need to manage their everyday responsibilities as well as achieve the following;

• Supporting a rapid pace of project and product
  delivery
• Gaining an all-encompassing view of the project
  progress
• Keeping the focus on value while maintaining
  (or increasing) speed of product delivery
• Managing stakeholder expectations

These may not be new challenges to many Project Managers. But, many are seeking to implement smarter ways of working in order to maintain productivity, collaboration, speed, and quality.

Establishing better processes in development projects allows Project Managers to focus on the things that matter: customers and their expectations.

Project Managers are aware that competition is tough, and failure to keep the customer as the focus may lead to losing them altogether.

This whitepaper aims to guide Project Managers through their current challenges and outline realistic approaches to overcoming them. It will offer a set of steps to take, to adopt agile project management methodologies.

Who is this white paper for?

1. Multiple teams working together from multiple locations …

Whilst the concept of more agile collaboration could be applied to a multitude of disciplines and project management scenarios, the key focus for this paper is on the need for agile working across multiple software development teams.

This is relevant to project managers who are responsible for the coordination of multitudinous and complex factors in the delivery of product development.

These project managers are responsible for coordinating teams of people from both within and outside the organization.

They are working together towards common objectives but often without one unified approach.

2. Teams using disconnected technology …

Another common issue for project managers to address is the supporting technology.

In some cases, there may be project management tools and applications in place to support and assist teams in collaborating and communicating.

But there is often a lack of consistency. And each team finds themselves using whichever tools they see best fits their own requirements.

In some instances where subcontractors or small teams are part of the project, there may be a complete lack of supporting technology altogether.

3. Project manager with an ever-growing team …

Project Managers in software development often find themselves looking to grow and expand their teams to include other internal teams, external teams and sub-contractors in order to meet the demands of a growing business.

4. Teams using a mix of approaches to managing workloads

In bringing teams together to work on the same project, Project Managers are likely to be faced with a combination of approaches and processes already in place.

One team may be comfortable using the waterfall model to base their workload on. While another team may still be relying on spreadsheets and written task lists.

The Challenges of Working in a multi-team environment working from different locations

This often complex scenario which software development project managers find themselves, produces a host of challenges that need to be addressed;

1. Volume of information

Managing multiple teams, team members, tasks, deadlines, and statuses leads to an overwhelming amount of data to coordinate into a logical and simple plan.

In projects with no collaboration and unified approach, this can lead to huge risks and delays, in delivering product releases on time and on budget. Especially when the project is being worked on by multiple teams.

2. Inflexibility

The software development world is competitive and fast-paced.

Successful organizations rely on their project teams to deliver regular product releases that respond to changing feature prioritization and insight from the dynamic software market.

Internal and external influences can affect the scope of projects enormously.

Many development teams find themselves not agile enough to adapt quickly and effectively.

3. Coordination of disparate teams

Managing the individuals within one team is a challenge in itself.

Add to this multiple teams in multiple locations and the challenge becomes overwhelming.

When aiming to deliver successful projects involving a number of internal and external teams, project managers need to consider individual ways of working, differing quality standards, internal conflict, and cultural and time differences.

4. Ineffective communication

When multiple teams and individuals are working towards one single outcome, good communication is essential.

And project managers can’t rely on ad hoc emails and phone calls to keep their teams on track.

It is the role of the project manager to break down communication barriers and encourage collaboration over working in silo, all the while avoiding confusion.

This can be a tricky balance to achieve.

5. Managing risk

Risk is an inevitable part of any software development project.

Even more so when multiple teams are involved.

Project managers need to be aware of potential risks, manage appropriately, communicate the risk outwardly, and mitigate where possible.

6. Maintaining speed of delivery

Software organizations rely on their speed of product delivery in order to survive.

But when each software project encompasses a multitude of moving parts this can be a big challenge.

Project Managers need to ensure there is a strategy in place for maintaining speed and quality (with limited risk) when dealing with patches, updates, and changing prioritizations.

The Approach

With the potential pitfalls of disjointed project management in software development displayed clearly, it makes sense that project managers are seeking smarter ways to

• coordinate their teams for better
  collaboration,
• deliver faster product development with
  minimized risk,
• increase flexibility to respond to change.

This is where agile project management comes into play.

The agile methodology is a broad term used to describe various methods to support an iterative and incremental approach to effective software development.

The goal of the agile methodology is fast, regular, and high-quality software development facilitated through planning, tracking, analyzing, and above all, communication. 

This approach to software development is a well-known concept that has been in practice for decades.

One of the most common approaches adopted to support this movement is the Scrum agile development methodology. First proposed as a development framework in the 1980’s, Scrum is now used widely in organizations all over the world to improve business (not just development) processes.

Essentially agile development, in the context of software, centers on iterative and incremental development of software products.

There are many methodologies based on the agile concept and Scrum is one that is widely adopted by software teams worldwide.

The Scrum-based methodology focuses on breaking down large projects into allocated tasks and regular sprints (or reviews).

This allows a development team to track progress and add, remove or change elements along the way.

It acknowledges the importance of customer feedback, the need to be flexible, and the need for effective team collaboration.

The importance of scale

What often leads Project Managers to consider ways of improving their processes is the need to scale.

Growing teams lead to new group dynamics and the need to adapt their way of working accordingly.

In this common scenario, it is the role of the project manager to maintain visibility at all times and communicate the goals and objectives clearly.

This is not easy with multiple disparate teams to consider.

For development teams to be effective it is important that they understand how their contribution to the project affects the overall outcome and meets the objectives for the organization as a whole.

Product Architecture

The capability to scale depends on the concise breakdown of a product into components and subsystems or features.

This demarcation allows to distribute the responsibility of the product amongst the different teams.

For instance, a product, such as a mobile app, can be broken down into components such as the front end, back end, database reporting function, and design.

The Project Manager can gain visibility over these components and their development status, and manage deadlines and priorities more effectively.

System Integration Team

When the product is broken down into components where multiple people (teams) contribute to them, you need to be able to assemble them back together.

The system integration team is responsible for assembling the delivered components into one product.

Successful product development and release relies upon a multi-skilled team to validate every element and orchestrate every release.

Their responsibility includes taking care of the infrastructure for reviewing and testing integrations. And carrying out continuous improvement checks.

One of their main activities is to establish test cases and define release-specific test plans.

Definition of Done

Most project managers will be familiar with the term ‘Definition of Done’.

They will also agree that it is important for all team members to understand what the criteria is against which a product is reviewed for release.

Each story or feature in a sprint has its own level of acceptance criteria, and each sprint has multiple stories.

It is therefore important that the project manager provides a way for the team members working on different components, to access a unified set of acceptance criteria for the entire project.

This is essential for a release to go ahead.

The Scrum agile approach supports this unified thinking brilliantly, with its focus on collaboration and incremental progress.

Regular Scrum meetings provide the perfect opportunity to check in on progress against criteria. Enabling the product owner to make a decision about what goes into a release and what ist pushed to the backlog.

The Scrum approach also enables the Project Manager to maintain a level of fluidity to the Definition of Done. Because the open communication channel means that as teams get more familiar with working collaboratively and pick up pace, the Definition of Done can adapt accordingly.

Promotion Levels / Product readiness

With any software product release, it is important that an informed decision can be made if the build can be published.

Promotion levels allow to associate a quality level to a particular build and reflects the type and amount of tests that have been carried out (successfully).

For instance a:

• bronze promotion level
  indicates that all unit and component tests succeeded.
• Performance
  tests will be carried out to achieve a silver
  level,
• while a gold level requires that the
  documentation matches the provided functionalities.

There will be scenarios where a gold release is imperative. And other occasions when a patch needs to get to market and a bronze build is sufficient.

These promotion levels are key. But decisions cannot be made without full visibility over what the acceptance criteria are. And what needs to be done in order to achieve them.

Supporting adaptiveness and acknowledging the importance of the customer

It is important to stress the point of how an agile framework aligns with the need for adaptable and responsive product development.

An incremental development framework supports short releases through regular sprints and scrum reviews. Giving the development team the chance to review progress and rearrange priorities if necessary.

In addition, essential customer feedback can be reviewed as part of this progress and potentially integrated into a release immediately.

This focus on the customer is an essential consideration for Project Managers.

Achieving agile collaboration

Once a decision has been made to implement an agile approach for the collaboration of multiple teams, what steps can you take to get started?

1.     Gain support before you start

The first step to implementing agile collaboration in software development is to ensure that there is internal support from relevant parties.

It is very challenging to implement a new framework within an existing organization. And Project Managers establishing collaboration through cross-functional and dispersed teams can often meet resistance. Resistance to change and cultural barriers.

Implementing a Scrum approach is asking the teams to change their focus and take control of their workload in a way which they may not be familiar with.

Support from key stakeholders within the organization displays confidence and assurance. Which can help overcome some of this resistance to change.

2. Establish clear goals

As a Project Manager you may be convinced that an agile collaboration approach is the way forward for your software development teams.

Take the opportunity to think about how Scrum will initially affect the teams and their productivity.

Then establish what you are trying to achieve through the implementation.

List out the goals and objectives for implementing a Scrum and agile approach. And it will be easier to break these down into actionable tasks and responsibilities.

It will also give you a good idea of whether you have all of the right people you need in the teams in order to achieve these goals.

3. Predict challenges and plan how to overcome them

Once you have established your goals and objectives, it is a good time to step back and think about what challenges may arise pre, during and post implementation of this new collaborative approach.

These may be linked to organizational culture, new starters or leavers, or technology problems.

Whatever they are, the more aware you are, the more chance you have to successfully plan ahead to overcome them.

4. Decide on roles

You have clear goals laid out and have predicted the issues you may come across as part of the process.

Now you need to decide how the Scrum roles will be allocated across the members of the teams who will make up the development project team.

This can be a complex task.

While the majority will assume the role of team member, you need to make sure there are clear Product Owners working on the development.

And you will have to decide whether you, as Project Manager, will take on the role of Scrum Master. Or whether this will be someone else that you work in unison with.

Often the role of the Scrum Master changes for each sprint.

Another important consideration is the size and scale of a project. As many large projects require a Project Management Officer (PMO) to manage multiple Project Managers.

Additionally, for collaboration across multiple teams you need to decide whether there is a requirement for nominating Scrum coordinators to take part in the ‘Scrum of Scrums’.

When scaling up means that Scrum teams are getting too big, teams can nominate one person to deliver their input and feedback to other representatives in a smaller group.

5. Be transparent at all times

Once you have decided on the Scrum approach and are busy defining goals and allocating responsibilities, remember that it’s important to keep your plans (short and long-term) transparent.

Not every product release can include each item from every wishlist. So Project Managers need to be realistic.

Short-term plans will likely be more detailed and outline plans in granular detail.

Long  term plans often don’t have this luxury.

Make these plans available to development teams. And be prepared to answer questions and concerns. And respond to input from the teams you are coordinating.

6. Assess product backlog and establish sprint plan

When you’re establishing a Scrum approach across multiple teams you need to create one master product backlog for each team to extract their own backlog from.

The Product Owner should assume responsibility for managing and maintaining this backlog.

The project manager must oversee that this backlog is groomed regularly and thoroughly. This is to ensure that there are no requests sitting in silo.

Similarly, you must establish one clear plan which all parties adhere to. Clearly laying out the sprint plan, schedule for sprint retrospectives and testing.

Make sure none of the teams you are coordinating are rolling out their own diluted version of this. Success in Scrum depends on a single strategy for product delivery and transparency is crucial. The agile framework is built on unified thinking, transparent collaboration and constant communication. It requires discipline.

7. The technology enablers

What applications and platforms are your multiple teams currently using to track their workload and deadlines?

You may find that there are a mix of products and methods being used currently. But there is a need here for consistency.

Think about the technology you need to put in place to track progress and status of product and subsystem delivery.

If you already have something in place, is this easily rolled out to include disparate teams?

It may be that you need to implement a synchronization tool (like this one) to make sure everyone’s workflows are aligned.

Another important technology consideration for multiple teams is communication platforms.

To succeed in agile working it is essential to move away from email and instant messaging conversations to a mechanism that enables you to view how the teams are collaborating and audit progress.

Note: Issue trackers are perfect for this. However, if you’re working with multiple systems, you will need a synchronization tool like Exalate. It’ll help you keep all information up-to-date and in sync while the teams keep on working in their own environment.

8. Offer training and support

An essential part of the collaboration process between multiple teams is offering ongoing support and enablement.

Make sure your teams understand what vehicles are available for them to access relevant information or ask questions.

9. Check back and make changes

Like any effective project management process, ensure that you inspect your agile collaboration processes regularly. And adapt as necessary.

If something isn’t working, don’t hesitate to change it. As long as any changes are communicated clearly and concisely to those who are affected.

Need for change can be a good indicator that progress is being made.

Suggest process inspections once per sprint.

Summary

The agile methodology was established to help businesses accommodate the changing needs in software development.

By introducing a unified set of processes and a focus on communication and collaboration, Project Managers are able to get better visibility of all aspects of the development project. And make adjustments to keep on improving.

This fluid approach allows better responses to market and customer influences. And it reduces time and resource being wasted on unnecessary project components and tasks.

Implementing an agile framework is not a simple task.

For Project Managers it requires much thought, preparation, and support in order to be done effectively.

There also needs to be a consistent focus on improved communication and collaborative working. But the benefits for better software development and fine-grained control are without question. 

Recommended Reading:

• Project Management Best Practices for Aligning Disparate Teams
• Service Integration and Management: an Introduction to SIAM
• How to Get the Most out of Your Workflow Integration
• ITSM Integration: Simplify Your IT Services Like Never Before