Plan Integrations Before They Become a Launch Blocker
A practical integration checklist covering ownership, data flow, permissions, failure states, testing, and operational work after launch.
By Aleksej Djokic ยท
An integration is a dependency, not a checkbox
Connecting a form to a CRM or an app to billing changes what your product must handle. Availability, credentials, rate limits, data shape, retries, privacy, and ownership all matter before a successful demo means anything.
Questions for every connection
- Which system is the source of truth for each field?
- Who owns the account, credentials, and permissions?
- What happens when the provider is slow or unavailable?
- Can a failed operation be retried safely or corrected manually?
- How will test data stay separate from production?
- What logs or alerts tell the team the workflow needs attention?
Make the dependency visible
Draw the data flow
Show systems, events, fields, transformations, and where a person reviews information.
Confirm the contract
Use provider documentation and a realistic case to verify inputs, outputs, permissions, and limits.
Design failure behavior
Give users a clear status and operators a safe recovery path instead of silently losing work.
Test ownership
Document who can rotate credentials, respond to incidents, and approve changes.
The happy path is the shortest test
A reliable integration is defined by what happens when the other system is unavailable, duplicated, delayed, or changed. Budget time for those cases early.