There are so many different software products out there now that no POS system can do absolutely everything in the manner in which every different venue operator wants them to do it.
So for that reason we look to integrate other software packages with our own to make things run better without having to reinvent the wheel.
Its been one of our biggest learning curves that when we first started back in the early 2000's there wasn’t much interest in getting 2 different software packages to speak to each other.
A software system back then had to natively manage the basic of activities that a user wanted and if it didn’t, you changed to one that did that activity but then that software system would more than likely be poor in another area - there was no middle ground.
These days integrating to other software packages is a must because reinventing the wheel is silly when you have 4 wheels on your car, why not add another few wheels on it instead of having to make a brand new wheel ourselves.
So from our perspective, finding software that we can integrate to is well worth it when it adds value to our existing software package and at a much quicker and cheaper opportunity than making the same thing ourselves.
These days, with the amount of software packages out there though, the day to day discussions that we have with clients is now centred around new and innovative software packages that seemingly pop up out of nowhere to do one particular task well and one task only.
Its great that there are software packages out there that concentrate on a unique activity but that’s all they have to do, usually one activity alone, which helps them develop this one activity in detailed form.
Our task as professional POS developers is to look at these packages and determine if a group of our clients will benefit from creating some sort of integration with these software packages.
Managing to create an integration is akin to getting someone who speaks Mandarin to learn Spanish and to have a perfectly fluent discussion with another Spanish speaking person as soon as possible. As we know, this takes time in real life and the same applies in the software world.
I’ve decided to write this Blog post because it really needs to be discussed between us that integration is never a simple process and never a quick process.
Try learning Spanish yourself and you’ll find that to be true.
We are currently working on a "simple" integration and that "simple" integration impacts on many different elements of our own BOSSII software package. So far this "simple" integration has taken about 3 months to create and so at this point tens of thousands of dollars in time taken in development cost on our side.
This is because having over 10 million lines of code means that if you want to add something new you have to make sure not only that that particular code works but that it also doesn’t break anything else you already have written. All of these tests take much time and effort to get right and to program code for.’
We currently have integrations with over a dozen different software systems. Some work well, some could work better if we had more time but the major point on them is they make BOSSII better for our clients.
The determining factor to create an integration to another package is that will it make things work better for a large group of clients. If that’s a yes, then that is the determining factor as to whether we take the plunge in development time and cost to complete the process.
Hopefully this has helped you understand our process a little more so.
Current BOSSII Integrations:
MYOB (https://www.myob.com/au)
XERO (https://www.xero.com/au/)
LIGHTYEAR APP (https://www.lightyear.cloud/)
TANDA (https://www.tanda.co/)
NOWBOOKIT (https://nowbookit.com/)
RESPAK BOOKINGS DIARY (https://restaurant.opentable.com.au/respak/)
LINKLY CLOUD & ON-PREMISE (https://www.linkly.com.au/)
TYRO EFTPOS (https://www.tyro.com/)
WOOCOMMERCE (https://woocommerce.com/)
MESSAGE MEDIA SMS (https://messagemedia.com/au/)
GMAIL EMAIL (https://gmail.com/)
MICROSOFT OUTLOOK EMAIL (https://www.office.com/)
DIGITAL PERSONA U-ARE-U FINGERPRINT SCANNERS (https://www.neurotechnology.com/fingerprint-scanner-digitalpersona-u-are-u-4500.html)
BRICE WEIGHT SCALES (https://www.briceaust.com.au/weighing-scales/)
