Integration

What do we mean by enabling integration?

Councils have multiple different systems that all hold data slightly differently and work in different ways.

To ensure that systems can ‘talk to each other’ it is important to design and implement an organisation wide approach to integration to ensure seamless interaction between different technologies and a consistent approach to integration council wide.

Knowledge

• Understanding of architectural and integration best practice, standards, and governance approaches.
• Knowledge of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), data formats, middleware, databases, network protocols and security.
• How to align technology delivery to support and enable organisational outcomes.
• Understanding of different project delivery approaches, including Agile and waterfall and the benefits and limitations each from a technology delivery perspective.
• Strategic understanding of infrastructure and applications.

Skills

Able to:

• Think strategically: Ensuring integration requirements align with the overall strategic objectives of the organisation, thinking long term and considering key constraints.
• Design overall architecture principles, standards, and approaches: Understanding the ‘as is’ state and setting a clear framework within which integration aligns to wider architectural considerations.
• Understanding organisational requirements for integration: Working with stakeholders to identify opportunities for integration and to understand user and service needs.
• Consider security: Including authentication, data access requirements and encryption.
• Advise on data preparation: Including mapping data between different systems to understand how to design data extraction, transformation, and load requirements.
• Considering options and making decisions: Considering middleware, the use of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) or other solutions (e.g. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) where no other integration capability is viable).
• Implement integration: Building the solution(s) according to the agreed technical design.
• Plan and manage integration testing: Working within multi-disciplinary teams to ensure the integration meets defined acceptance criteria.
• Document the integration to aid transition: Ensuring that the future support team understands the integration design and how to maintain it and that users understand where to go with queries.
• Communicate and collaborate effectively: With stakeholders at all levels, including technical and non-technical teams.
• Manage risk: Understand the risks associated with integration and apply the necessary controls to manage risk effectively within the council’s risk appetite.