Who this is for and how to use it
For operations, finance and IT leads who want systems to share information and the work scoped before anyone prices it, whether built internally, with a connector or by a provider.
One business event at a time. Work through the list for a single event, such as "an order is accepted" or "an invoice is paid". Integrating "everything" at once is the most common reason these projects stall. "We don't know" is a valid answer: it shows where discovery is needed.
1. The business event
- Event name in business language ("customer accepts a quote").
- Trigger: what signals the event, and in which system?
- Outcome: what should be true in each other system afterwards?
- Volume: roughly how often per day, week or month?
- Timing: within seconds, or is hourly or daily fine?
- Today: who does it by hand, and how long?
2. The systems and how they connect
- Systems: product, edition or plan, and who administers each.
- Method: built-in connector, integration platform, documented API, or files only.
- API access on your plan: tier limits and request limits (HubSpot example).
- Authentication: API keys, OAuth or service account; who creates and rotates them?
- Test environments: a sandbox for each, or how testing avoids real records.
- Vendor constraints: anything not allowed, or charged extra.
- Connectivity and power: if a link or site power fails, queue and retry, or lose data?
3. Records, identifiers and ownership
- Records: customers, contacts, items, orders, invoices, payments.
- Source of truth per record type, and per field held twice.
- Shared identifier linking records across systems, and where it is stored.
- Direction: what flows one way, and what flows back?
- Field mapping: source, destination, transformation (formats, units, tax codes, currencies).
4. Data quality
- Duplicates: roughly how many duplicate customers or items today?
- Required fields often empty (tax identification numbers, addresses, product codes).
- Inconsistent values ("Lagos", "LA" and "Lagos State" in one field).
- Clean-up owner: who fixes data before go-live, by when?
- History: synchronise, migrate once, or leave behind?
5. Exceptions and failure handling
- Repeats: what happens if the same event arrives twice?
- Missing or invalid data: hold for review, or reject?
- Conflicts: which system wins when values disagree?
- Outages: what happens, and how long may records wait?
- Alerts: who is notified of failures, how, and expected to do what?
- Manual fallback: how work continues if the integration is off.
6. People, approvals and privacy
- Sponsor who decides and settles disagreements between teams.
- Business owners for each record type.
- Approvals: does any step need a person before data moves on?
- Personal data: what moves, and does it match what you told people?
- Hosting: does data move to a system hosted outside Nigeria?
- Log access: who can see integration logs containing customer data?
- Ongoing owner after launch.
The principles of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 include using personal data only for specified, lawful purposes and keeping it to what is necessary. If data moves to a system hosted outside Nigeria, the NDPA's rules on cross-border transfers apply.
7. Acceptance tests
Agree these before work starts. They define "done".
| # | Test | Expected result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Normal event, complete data | Records created or updated correctly everywhere |
| 2 | Same event sent twice | One record; duplicate ignored and logged |
| 3 | Required field missing | Held for review; a named person alerted |
| 4 | Destination unavailable | Queued and retried; alert after the agreed failures |
| 5 | Values disagree | Documented source of truth wins |
| 6 | Credentials expire or revoked | Stops safely and alerts; no data lost |
| 7 | Reconciliation after a test period | No unexplained differences |
Reading your results
| Result | Next step |
|---|---|
| Mostly answered | Ask for estimates; send the checklist so every provider prices the same thing. |
| Gaps in sections 2 or 3 | A short, paid discovery on feasibility and ownership is usually money well spent. |
| Gaps in sections 4 or 6 | Fix the data and agree ownership first: integration will not resolve organisational disagreements. |
Want help turning it into a scope? Send us what you have; a partly completed checklist is a good start.
Sources and further reading
Product capabilities and guidance change. These are the primary sources this article relies on, checked on the review date above.
- API usage guidelines and limits, HubSpot Developers
- Overview of SuiteTalk REST Web Services, Oracle NetSuite Help Center
- Data Import, ERPNext documentation (Frappe)
- Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPA and GAID 2025), Nigeria Data Protection Commission
This article is general information, not legal, accounting or security advice for your specific situation. Examples are hypothetical unless stated otherwise.