What does an integration project actually look like?

Integration projects are uniquely challenging. In the world of commerce, where smooth data flows drive everything from order fulfillment to customer experience, getting integrations right is critical to success.

While these projects share similarities with other IT efforts, they come with unique complexities. If you’re an IT leader tasked with managing integrations for your organization, this guide will help you understand what to expect and how to approach these projects effectively.

We’ll cover the following:

• What roles are typically involved in an integration project?
• What prerequisites will help your team succeed?
• What are the basic phases of an integration project?
  

By the end, you’ll be equipped with a framework to tackle your next integration project confidently.

Roles Involved

Team sizes and roles will vary depending on your organization, but the following are core to almost any integration project. In smaller teams, individuals may wear multiple hats, but it’s essential to understand the function of each role:

• ‍Analyst: Defines business and technical requirements for the integration.‍
• Engineer: Builds the integration to meet those requirements.‍
• Project Manager: Keeps the project on schedule and removes obstacles.‍
• End User (Business Stakeholder): Represents the business outcomes the integration must achieve.‍
• Quality Assurance (QA) Analyst: Tests the integration to ensure data moves accurately and reliably.

Prerequisites for Success

Preparation is key to any successful integration project. The following prerequisites will help you avoid delays and missteps:

1. Sandbox Environments

Sandbox environments for systems like your ERP, WMS, or eCommerce platform allow your team to safely build and test integrations without impacting live operations.

A good sandbox environment should:

• Mirror production as closely as possible.
• Contain sample data that reflects edge cases without overwhelming volume.
• Support testing scenarios like system outages or maintenance events.
  

2. System Expertise

Having someone on your team with a functional understanding of the systems being integrated—such as an ERP, OMS, or eCommerce platform—can help streamline the process. This expertise doesn’t need to be exhaustive; a working knowledge of the systems’ basic capabilities and the business processes they support is often enough to get started.

That said, integration projects shouldn’t grind to a halt because deep system expertise isn’t readily available. Modern tools and approaches, including those that leverage AI, can help bridge gaps in system knowledge by analyzing API documentation and other resources. This allows teams to focus on aligning integrations with business outcomes, rather than getting stuck on the technical details of individual systems.

While expertise is helpful, it’s no longer the bottleneck it used to be. The right tools and frameworks can empower your team to move forward even when they’re unfamiliar with a system’s inner workings.

3. Access Credentials

Access credentials are essential for two key purposes in an integration project:

• ‍User Access: Ensuring team members working on the integration can log into the systems involved. This type of access is often needed for initial testing, troubleshooting, and verifying the integration’s behavior. User credentials might be straightforward—such as a username and password—but it’s still important to secure them early, especially if administrative or elevated permissions are required.‍
• API Authentication: Enabling the integration itself to communicate with the systems. This requires a deeper layer of configuration, as the integration must authenticate securely with each system’s API. Common methods include API keys, OAuth tokens, or signed certificates, and each system has its own rules and quirks.
  

While user access can usually be set up with help from an admin, configuring API authentication is where teams often encounter challenges. It requires navigating system documentation, understanding security protocols, and ensuring permissions are correctly scoped. Missteps—like using the wrong authentication method or omitting a required permission—can lead to frustrating delays.

This is where modern tools can make a big difference. AI-powered solutions, for example, can analyze API documentation and guide your team through configuring authentication correctly. By surfacing clear instructions or even automating parts of the process, these tools reduce the confusion and guesswork often associated with API authentication.

To avoid roadblocks, prioritize securing both user access and API authentication credentials early in the project. This ensures your team can hit the ground running and allows the integration to operate reliably when it’s time to test and deploy.

Phases of an Integration Project

No two projects are exactly alike, but most integration efforts follow these universal phases:

1. Use Case Development

Every integration begins with defining what it’s meant to accomplish. In commerce, this might mean:

• Syncing orders from your eCommerce platform to your ERP for fulfillment.
• Automating inventory updates between your WMS and online storefronts.
• Enabling real-time customer updates across multiple channels.
  

Use cases should focus on business outcomes, not technical details. For example, instead of describing API endpoints, frame the goal as:

• “Ensure all new orders appear in the ERP within 15 minutes.”
• “Keep inventory levels consistent across all sales channels.”
  

This phase also sets the stage for estimating the effort required to complete the project.

2. Field Mapping

Field mapping translates high-level use cases into detailed technical specifications. This involves defining how data flows between systems:

• Which fields in System A map to fields in System B (e.g., SKU → Product Code)?
• What data transformations are required (e.g., converting currencies or recalculating inventory counts)?
• How often should data sync, and how should errors be handled?
  

Field mapping ensures engineers have a clear, logical blueprint to follow, minimizing rework later.

3. Construction

During construction, engineers build the integration according to the field map. The tools used can vary depending on the complexity of the project:

• ‍Integration Platforms (iPaaS): These low-code tools can be helpful for straightforward integrations but often struggle with complex, edge-case-heavy requirements. iPaaS solutions are generally limited by their reliance on pre-built connectors, which may not fully support your specific systems or use cases. Customizations can quickly become costly and cumbersome, especially for commerce companies dealing with unique business processes or legacy systems.‍
• Custom Code: This option provides maximum flexibility but requires significant time, technical expertise, and maintenance effort. Custom coding is often the fallback when other solutions fail, but it isn’t always feasible for lean IT teams.‍
• AI-Powered Integration (Doohickey): Doohickey offers a fundamentally different approach to integration, leveraging AI to simplify and accelerate the process. Instead of relying on pre-built connectors or requiring extensive manual configuration, Doohickey dynamically learns about your systems by analyzing their documentation and APIs. This allows your team to create custom integrations tailored to your business needs—without needing specialized expertise in every system involved.
  

Doohickey also addresses common friction points in the construction phase, such as setting up authentication, mapping data, and resolving API errors. By removing these bottlenecks, your IT team can deliver reliable integrations faster and with less effort, ensuring that critical commerce workflows, like order-to-cash or real-time inventory updates, remain uninterrupted.

This phase is largely heads-down work for engineers, but tools like Doohickey make it possible to automate repetitive tasks and maintain focus on higher-value activities. Collaboration with analysts may still be necessary to clarify gaps or edge cases, but the process becomes far more streamlined and predictable.

4. Testing

Testing ensures the integration meets its requirements and can handle real-world scenarios, such as:

• Large data volumes during peak sales events like Black Friday.
• Edge cases, such as invalid or missing data fields.
  

QA analysts use test cases tied directly to the defined use cases. For instance:

• Use Case: “Sync orders from Shopify to the ERP.”
• Test Case: “Verify that a multi-line order with discounts, taxes, and shipping fees syncs correctly.”
  

Testing is your biggest lever for managing project risk, but balance is key. Over-testing delays timelines; under-testing increases the risk of failures in production.

5. Deployment & Go-Live

Deploying an integration involves moving from a sandbox to a live production environment. While this is often the shortest phase, it’s also critical. Key considerations include:

• Running lightweight tests in production to confirm functionality.
• Coordinating deployment during off-peak hours to minimize business disruption.
  

At the end of this phase, your integration should deliver value to your business users, enabling smoother operations and better outcomes.

Final Thoughts

Integration projects in commerce can be complex, but they’re also a tremendous opportunity to streamline operations and deliver measurable business impact. By understanding the roles, prerequisites, and phases involved, you’ll be better prepared to lead your team to success.