Integration – it’s a buzzword ricocheting across the public safety technology industry. It’s common to hear software companies say their solution can fully integrate with other platforms and programs, but what does that really mean, and how do you know if the solution you’re considering is truly integrated?  

To fully understand the integration paradigm, it’s first important to understand the factors that contribute to the efficacy of a system’s promise of integration. Ask yourself a few questions as you explore integration opportunities, including:

• What does integration really mean to the vendor? It’s easy to say that two systems can ‘talk’ to each other, but there’s more than just co-existence to fulfill a true integration. Do the systems share data, user credentials, communication systems? Which data points are integrated?  Are you counting on data being available operationally in the real time?
• What type of integration does this software provide? Consider your data needs and how you need your information to be accessed, activated, stored, and secured. Is the integration one-directional (data and information flows one way) or bi-directional (data and information flows back and forth between the two platforms)?
• What data types can be supported? How often is data updated between the two systems, and what does that updating process look like? Some systems that promise integration can result in users spending valuable time and resources exporting, reformatting, and importing data, resulting in a potential loss of uptime, quality, and data integrity and availability.
• What work needs to be done to facilitate the integration? Is the integration a turnkey solution, available with minimal setup, or does the integration rely on complicated, time-consuming, and custom work and testing? Will you be stuck with endless data imports and exports and data cleansing? How is your historical data handled?

Unfortunately, many vendors are stretching the definition of integration and agencies are suffering as a result. Agencies searching for a provider that can fully integrate with their legacy systems are being told that potential new solutions are abstractly interoperable. While the integration might be possible, it often involves tedious spreadsheet work, time-consuming CSV imports, and many hours of manual work …frustrating, costly, and inefficient for already busy agencies.

There’s a simple solution -- choose an all-in-one solution where integration is native and is part of the platform. This neatly solves any integration concerns you might have – you’ll know that all of your data, systems, and information are already aligned and integrated for optimal success. This also cuts down on implementation time and potential for integration issues. An end-to-end solution should be so seamless, smooth, and interoperable that you shouldn’t even be aware that your modules are working together.  

Imagine being able to quickly move from inspections to pre-planning, to assets, and reporting – all in one place, knowing your information is consistent and all systems are working together without the extra work. Learn more about First Due’s all-in-one platform here.

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