What is middleware? (A guide to software API integrations)

it doesn't matter which industry you're in if you're running a company in the 2020s then it is a digital business you might not be making software but you are creating digital systems and at some point they're going to need to be connected that's where apis and custom integrations come into play [Music] at esm inbound we create software integrations every single day sometimes our development team will do that with custom code that they've created themselves other times our crm team will use off-the-shelf tools such as zapier or integromat to create the integration but that's where there's a common misconception more often than not we hear people ask us just use the api as if that's some sort of magic tool for creating all of the connections between all your platforms but the truth is that each platform's api is just a small part of the puzzle of connecting two systems together where the majority of work takes place is in the middleware what's middleware middleware is software that takes the output of one system processes that data into a format that can be recognized by the inputs of another platform and it's this data processing where the majority of work for your integration will need to take place imagine that you have got two apps one is a spreadsheet and one is a crn platform in each row of the spreadsheet you've got an additional contact so you want to have it so that as you add a new role to that spreadsheet every single time that creates a new contact in your crm this is a really common and pretty straightforward integration to build in this scenario we'll call the spreadsheet the source app and we'll call the crm the target app the first thing we need to do is to get the contact data from the spreadsheet we'll do that using the spreadsheet apps api so as a new row is added to that spreadsheet we're able to send that information through the api over to our middleware platform now you'd think realistically speaking that's just data why don't i send it from the spreadsheet directly into the crm well the reality is that that data isn't always formatted in exactly the same way and for example the column names in your spreadsheet might not match the field names in your crm you need to do some data processing and that's what middleware is it's translation software that allows each system to understand the information sent from the other and we can process that information really really carefully in our spreadsheet to crm example then we might want to only import contacts into the crm if they've shown an interest in a particular product our middleware can do that data processing still confused about what middleware is let's imagine this as if it's a translation service before the internet came along we've got a french person who can only speak french and we've got an italian person who can only speak italian the french person might want to send a letter to the italian person so they're going to have to write that letter in french because it's the only language they speak then before the internet they'd have had to post that letter to someone who speaks both french and italian that person then reads the french letter writes it out in italian and then forwards it on to the italian person in a language that they can read middleware is like that translation service taking the information from one source and translating it into a format the other can understand now that custom code can be hosted any way you like it could be node.js or python code that's running on google cloud aws microsoft azure or even your own server alternatively if your team doesn't have the technical expertise in order to write that code then you could use a middleware tool such as zapier or integromat which uses a visual step-by-step builder process to allow non-developers to create middleware integrations you could even go for a halfway house rather than trying to go all code or no code you could try a low code tool for example pipedream or hubspot's operations hub these tools allow you to use a visual builder for some of the basics and the authentication but they allow you to create custom code for certain steps of your journey whichever tool you use the best thing you can do is start away from the computer take a pen and paper or a whiteboard and plan out the details of your integration and make sure you understand exactly what processing needs to happen to get from your source to your target app once that's done building your integration is going to be a lot easier regardless of which approach you choose to getting your integration up and running you'll soon find the benefits of automation the amount of time that you invest up front in this integration will save you hours upon hours of people power on an ongoing basis for months and probably years to come i can't wait to see the integrations you build please drop a comment below if you're watching this on youtube or you can reach out to us on social media esm inbound on linkedin is the best place to get us [Music] you

Channel: SpotDev: the UK's HubSpot integration experts

Views: 25,398

Keywords: ESM Inbound, Digital Smiles, API, API Development, CRM, Integrations, SaaS

Id: 5uq5wCCXvwU

Length: 5min 54sec (354 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 28 2021