Front Door EAI?

Written by Richard Milam, Director of Business Development

In speaking with a prospective client, a technology wonk with a large utilities firm in the UK,  he said (in that cool British accent and style), “We’re a large utilities firm and we already have Enterprise Application Integration but what we need is EAI that goes in through the front door versus the back door”.

He went on to explain that they have a number of applications where their expensive “back door” EAI will not work because those applications are either proprietary (closed to interfaces)  or do not support the required XML or other messaging required for traditional enterprise EAI to function.  He needed a “front door” EAI that could enable integrations through the application’s user interface; clicking, pulling and pushing data just as a person would interact with the application.

Synchronicity was the first word that popped into my mind.  In Joseph Jaworski’s book by that name subtitled, ”The Inner Path to Leadership”, he explains through physics and personal experience that everything is connected either physically or spiritually and if through study, reflection, meditation, awareness and faith you can get dialed into the “synchronicity” of the universe, amazing things can and do happen. 

Well this was an amazing thing.  What this fine British fellow was asking for we had just announced in a webinar a few days earlier.  We had just announced Foxtrot^® X (X for application eXtender) which was precisely what he was looking for. 

Using a “studio” approach to creating integrations, Foxtrot X’s deployment wizard enables the user to place customized menus and buttons anywhere on virtually any Windows application without writing a single line of code and there is no interface requirement from the application.  The menus and buttons, when clicked by the applications user fire off FoxtrotOne^® scripts that do whatever you created them to do.  For example, they can pull a client number from a CRM applications, use that number to access billing information in an ERP application and then present the latest statement to the user in the blink of an eye. 

To the user it is seamless but for us systems integrators who know how difficult it can be to get unfriendly applications sharing information, it is truly Synchronicity!  Or maybe just EAI through the front door…

If you would like to learn more about Foxtrot X, watch the Foxtrot Suite v5.0 Unveilied Video.  Other videos are also available by visiting www.foxtrottv.com.

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