Integration Lifecycle

The key differentiator of the Integration Manager offering is how the end-users, or users, of an integration (solution instance), get onboarded.

With Integration Manager, you not only have to build integrations but also manage the onboarding of end-users and their respective solution instances. Therefore, it is important to have granular control over end-user credentials and end-user onboarding. This page will cover the Integration Manager lifecycle in detail, as well as how to granularly manage end-user credentials and configurations:

A sample lifecycle is demonstrated in the below graph:

Define Integration Use case

Integration is a basic need as your customers struggle to keep pace with volumes of data that gets generated every second and want quick insights and take actions rapidly. The Integration use cases can range from simple to complex integrations involving tons of systems:

Some Simple examples would be:

1. End user wants to notify the sales channel on Slack once the Lead status changes on Salesforce.

2. End user wants the Shopify customer data to outflow to your CRM (ex. Hubspot) so you can plan email campaigns.

Some complex examples would be:

1. You need to ensure data stays in sync between your legacy data silo (ex. MySQL) and the analytics platform (ex. Snowflake) for proper reporting.

2. You need to automate the new hire onboarding process through your recruitment platform (ex. Greenhouse) to the HR system (ex. ADP) and then to payroll (ex. Paylocity) and employee feedback systems (ex. Lattice).

You need to identify the problem your end users are facing and think if an integration could solve their need. Next step is to list down the services that will be interacting with each other in this process.

Once you have defined your roadmap, you can start using Tray's massive library of connectors and build integrations that can scale as per the needs of your end users.

Create a Solution

Check out the Tray academy's video that will walk you through the process of Creating a Solution:

Create Solution Instances

Solution instances are personalized integrations for you end users that would contain their authentications and config data (ex. mappings etc.)

Once you have published a Solution, you will be able to create instances from the dashboard.

At this stage, you will also create an End User or choose an existing one which will tag the instance to your end user. You can run the config wizard yourself or ask the end user to run it (Step-3 below).

Follow the steps below to achieve this:

It is important to know that, after you/end user has completed the configuration, the Solution Instance is not yet enabled (this is to allow you to make any checks or changes before an Instance is activated). So it will need to be enabled.

Managing Solution Instances

Enabling Instances

You can enable instances through the dashboard. Navigate to the project you want to enable instances for. Open the project and click on the Solution Instances tab. You will find all Solution Instances linked to this project.

You can click on enable as shown above and the instance would be enabled.

Disabling Instances

You can also disable instances if required. You will find a 'disable' option for a Solution Instance that's 'enabled':

Deleting Instances

You can delete instances through the dashboard as well. Navigate to the project you want to delete instances for. Open the project and click on the Solution Instances tab. You will find all Solution Instances linked to this project.

You can click on delete as shown above and a confirmation popup would load on your screen. Type DELETE and click on the 'Delete' button.

Updating Instance

You may want to update instances for updating auth and config data attached to the instance.

You can update instances through the dashboard. Navigate to the project you want to update instances for. Open the project and click on the Solution Instances tab. You will find all Solution Instances linked to this project.

You can click on update as shown above and it will open a modal with options to run config wizard either by yourself or through a shareable link with the end user.

Note that the shareable link is valid for 5 minutes.

The config wizard needs to be closed manually after clicking on 'finish' if the wizard runs through the 'Shareable Link' option.

As shown above the window doesn't close by itself after clicking finish. It's because the wizard is designed to run as a pop up.

Notes on Updating the Solution

When a Solution is published, there are two ways the instances are updated to keep up with latest solution release:

Automatic (lazy) updates

When a new version of a Solution is published, all instances of the said solution are updated automatically (ie. without any actions on your behalf) if no extra configuration is required.

This will work as a 'lazy update', with a delay of approx 2 minutes from release. If a source workflow runs on a scheduled trigger it won't happen until the next scheduled run.

Non-automatic updates (upgrades)

If there is new required config, this is considered an 'upgrade'. The instances won't be updated automatically.

You will have to run the config wizard again for every instance of the solution.