ERP, CRM and shop often hold the same information but treat it differently. Without a shared understanding of identities, responsibilities and states, the result is duplicate customers, wrong stock levels and orders that are hard to explain.
Define leading systems and data objects
For products, customers, prices, stock and orders, it is defined which system is the leading source. Stable identifiers and rules for merging, changing and deleting are just as important.
A simple data flow map shows whether information is transferred directly, via an integration layer or in scheduled runs. It prevents every application from maintaining its own special logic for the same data.
Transfer life cycles, not just fields
An order is not finished with the first import. Status changes, partial deliveries, returns, cancellations and payment information must be modelled as business states so that systems do not make contradictory assumptions.
Typical errors arise when only successful cases are tested. Invalid addresses, unknown items, differing tax rates and subsequent changes belong in the process definition and in the test data.
Handle errors, retries and outages
Network errors or temporarily unavailable services are normal. Idempotent operations, exponential backoff, limited retries and a dead-letter queue prevent duplicate orders and make permanently failed messages actionable.
Monitoring must report not only technical errors but also business anomalies.
Plan security and operation from the start
API credentials receive only the permissions they need and are managed separately per environment. Secrets belong in a secrets manager rather than in source code or configuration files; access, changes and processed messages are logged appropriately.
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