When a vendor says two systems are connected, what does that actually mean?
It can mean five very different things, from a link that opens one system inside another, to a nightly file, to a real-time two-way sync with conflict rules. The word alone tells you nothing. Ask three questions: which direction does data move, how fresh is it, and what happens when the two systems disagree. Most integration disappointment traces back to assuming a stronger answer than the vendor gave.
Five things sold under one word
- Link-level. A button that opens the other system with the right record loaded. Useful, but no data moves. Many "integrations" in marketplaces are this.
- One-way export. A file or feed lands somewhere on a schedule. Fine for reporting, useless for anything that must react quickly.
- One-way API read. The receiving system pulls live records on demand. This is the realistic baseline for intelligence and reporting work.
- Event-driven. The source system pushes a webhook when something changes, so downstream work happens in seconds instead of hours.
- Bidirectional sync. Both systems write, which forces you to answer what happens when both change the same field. Powerful and the most likely to cause damage if the conflict rules are vague.
The three questions that cut through the marketing
Direction: does data flow in, out, or both? Freshness: is it real time, hourly, nightly, or on demand only? Authority: when the two systems disagree about a customer's phone number, which one wins, and does the loser get overwritten or flagged?
A vendor who answers all three crisply has built a real integration. A vendor who answers "it syncs" has built one of the first two items above. This distinction matters far more than the number of logos on their integrations page — a point worth pressing on any integration claim.
Freshness is a business decision, not a technical one
Real-time costs more to build and more to maintain, because every push must be received, validated and retried. Nightly is dramatically simpler. The right choice depends entirely on the decision the data feeds.
A dispatch alert or a missed-call follow-up is worthless an hour late. A revenue-by-campaign report is fine on yesterday's data, and arguably better, since a full day is a cleaner unit than a partial one. Deciding freshness per use case rather than per system usually cuts the work substantially.
Connected does not mean reconciled
Two systems can be perfectly connected and still report different lead counts, because they define and time-stamp things differently. Connection moves data; reconciliation decides which definition governs the report.
Skipping the second step is how companies end up with three dashboards that disagree and a standing argument in the Monday meeting. Deciding the system of record for each fact is part of integration work, not an afterthought.
Topics: integration · vendor evaluation · data sync · definitions
Have a version of this question about your own business?
The useful answer usually depends on which systems you run and how they're connected. That's a conversation, not a blog post.