Integrating Sharepoint With Other Systems: Strategies And Considerations

Key Benefits of Integration

Integrating SharePoint with other business systems and applications can provide many valuable benefits:

Improved data flow between systems – Integration enables seamless transfer of data between SharePoint and other systems, ensuring information is up-to-date across the technology ecosystem.
Enhanced productivity and efficiency – Smooth data flow reduces manual data handling tasks. Automated workflows also streamline business processes. Users can access information faster.
Streamlined business processes – Integration helps break down data and process silos. This leads to consolidation of systems and processes for better efficiency.
Better access to information – Users get a unified view of information across various systems on SharePoint portals. This facilitates faster and better decision making.

Methods of Integration

There are several integration strategies and techniques that can be used to connect SharePoint with external systems:

Using SharePoint web services and APIs

SharePoint provides various built-in web services like lists, metadata, search and user profiles services. These can be leveraged to build custom integration solutions. SharePoint Client Object Model can also be used to access SharePoint data and services from .NET applications.

Table of Contents

Leveraging SharePoint’s inbuilt integration capabilities

SharePoint offers out-of-the-box connectivity to Office applications using features like Excel Services, Access Services and Visio Services. Workflows can also integrate external data using actions like ‘Call HTTP Web Service’.

Employing third-party tools and connectors

Third party add-ons like Microsoft Power Automate, Power Apps and Power BI provide prebuilt connectors that allow integrating SharePoint easily with popular apps like Oracle, SAP, Salesforce etc. Solutions like Boomi and Informatica also simplify integration needs for more complex scenarios.

Key Systems to Integrate

Microsoft Office Applications

Deep Microsoft Office integration is a key advantage of SharePoint. Some useful capabilities are:

Bidirectional synchronization between SharePoint lists and Excel spreadsheets
Using Power BI dashboards to visualize SharePoint list data
Automating workflows between SharePoint and Office 365 Outlook tasks
Launching OneNote from SharePoint to capture notes and action items

The Open XML SDK can programmatically access Office documents stored in SharePoint libraries. Example:

// Access Excel data in SharePoint using Open XML  

using (SpreadsheetDocument doc = SpreadsheetDocument.Open(filepath, true)) {

  WorkbookPart wbPart = doc.WorkbookPart;

  // Access sheets, cells etc  

}

Microsoft Dynamics 365

Dynamics integration allows synchronizing key customer data between both systems, enabling users to track complete customer journey from lead to order fulfillment. Some use cases are:

Making Dynamics CRM entity data available as external lists in SharePoint
Triggering Dynamics workflows on SharePoint list actions
Embedding Dynamics dashboards and visualizations in SharePoint sites

This code illustrates fetching Dynamics CRM data using CRM Web APIs from .NET application:

 
// Fetch CRM data using CRM web API 

var token = await crmCtx.GetOAuthToken();

HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", "Bearer " + token);  

var response = await client.GetAsync("https://org.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v9.1/accounts");

var content = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();  

// Parse JSON response

SQL Server Reporting Services

Reporting Services (SSRS) integration lets users incorporate interactive, scheduled reports and models into SharePoint dashboards and sites for improved business insights. Some capabilities are:

Render paginated SSRS reports right within SharePoint pages
Parameterize SSRS reports using SharePoint list data
Use SharePoint user permissions to manage report access and security

LDAP directories

SharePoint provides out-of-box support for Active Directory import and sync. Third-party LDAP solutions can enable integration with other directories like OpenLDAP and IBM Domino. Core capabilities:

Import user profile attributes from LDAP directories using synchronization
Enable LDAP authentication for SharePoint login
Schedule incremental syncs to ensure user data is up-to-date

Code Repositories

Source code integration with repos like Git, Azure DevOps and SVN allows developers to access repositories and pull latest changes right from SharePoint. Developers can also use SharePoint workflows to implement review-approve processes for code changes before commit.

ERP Systems like SAP

Bidirectional SharePoint and ERP integration can centrally publish ERP data like inventory counts, order status etc. on SharePoint portals for enterprise-wide visibility. ERP data can also be synced with SharePoint lists and libraries. Common use cases:

Visualize key ERP reports, KPIs and dashboards on SharePoint
Sync product catalogs, pricing data from ERP to SharePoint sites
Enable self-service access to order status, invoices etc. through SharePoint

Key Considerations

Some important aspects to factor while planning SharePoint integration with other systems:

Identity and access management

A centralized identity store synced across integrated systems using directory services like AD or LDAP can enable single sign-on (SSO) and unified access control.

Data consistency and integrity checks

Mechanisms for maintaining data consistency across systems and validating integrity to prevent data corruption are vital for reliable integration.

Handling sync conflicts

Logic for identifying and resolving integration conflicts due to issues like duplicate records, data deletion etc. needs to be implemented.

Security and compliance

Information security and regulatory compliance considerations applicable to each system must be accounted for in the integration architecture.

Managing integration complexity

As integration points across systems increase, complexity can spiral out of control. A reusable, modular integration approach with governance helps manage complexity effectively.