How Do Your Apps Talk?

One of the biggest challenges today is getting different solutions, technologies, and systems to communicate. Whether its having to adhere to different data object formats, closed and open APIs, or general “We don’t play well with other” company cultures, integrating the web has become quite complex. In an ideal world we would use the right app for the job at hand. Sometimes you need multiple apps to provide a result or outcome and sometimes those apps are not from the same provider or vendor. Maybe you’ve chosen Gmail for email, Clevertim to manage your contacts, and Salesforce to manage your sales leads. All of these apps do what they do best, but integration between them is at the hands of software developers and their release cycles.
Out of this overwhelming need to integrate across applications came the birth of companies like IFTTT and Zapier, both of which provide cause and effect automation. For instance, Zapier allows you to create Zaps, which establishes a connection between two or more apps built upon a trigger and an action. When that event or trigger happens Zapier automatically kicks off an action. With over 500 apps to choose from like Trello, Dropbox, Slack, Twitter, Facebook, Zapier integrates with just about everything out there. Triggers can be as simple as a received email or as complex as phone call transcription. The best part about these solutions is that no coding is required. Into the world of automating apps we go, but will business’s follow?