Don’t just build working Boomi integrations. Build well-engineered ones.

Don’t just build working Boomi integrations. Build well-engineered ones.

We recently helped a large distributor of consumer products migrate their EDI integrations to Boomi. The integrations we built were seamless, which led to an interesting next step. The client asked us to optimize two of their existing Boomi integrations.

Optimizing an existing integration requires more than knowing how to build a Boomi process. It requires an in-depth understanding of how Boomi works, the connected systems, and how the integration behaves when things don't go as planned.

Here are some of the key areas we addressed:

💡Business-friendly error alerts

The existing integrations handled the positive scenarios well. But when something failed, the business team wasn't always getting an alert that clearly explained what had gone wrong. We identified the different failure points and implemented appropriate error handling. Instead of allowing Boomi to simply throw a generic exception, we captured the errors and translated them into meaningful business-level messages. It was to tell the business team what failed, why it failed, and what action may be required.

💡Rerun capability

Error handling shouldn't stop at sending an alert. The business also needed the ability to correct the underlying issue and rerun the affected documents without unnecessarily reprocessing everything. We used a canonical two-step design so that documents could be appropriately separated and persisted at the right stage, making targeted reruns possible  

💡API batching

The existing integration was making many individual API calls to their ERP, which was contributing to API timeouts. We analysed the interaction pattern and consolidated multiple individual calls into batch API requests where appropriate. This resulted in staying within API limits.

We also improved on their code modularity, reusability and document tracking.

The bigger lesson is "Don’t just build working Boomi integrations. Build well-engineered ones."