PlatformApplicable to all products in Temenos Journey Manager. | All Personas | All versions This feature is related to all versions.
The Temenos Journey Manager comes with the following five integration areas:
Let's take a look at each integration in more detail.
Delivery integration is extremely important to every organization. Unless you deliver the data collected to the organization in some way, you are ultimately not gaining any value. This area is listed first, because it is almost always implemented, whereas many of the other integration areas are optional.
There are generally three types of artifacts that are delivered:
The Temenos Journey Manager platform has a large number of different ways in which deliveries can be performed, ranging from simple to sophisticated.
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Delivery Type
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Description
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Examples
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|---|---|---|
| The PDF, XML and attachments are attached to an email, which is then emailed to an individual or group email box for processing. The person/people monitoring this email account process the PDF, XML and/or attachments manually. This approach is usually the simplest option for low volume and/or low value transactions, but it can also be used very successfully as a short term solution while more sophisticated integrations are being built. | There is really not very much to do, other than making sure Manager has access to a mail server, and identifying the correct email recipients. | |
| Fax Gateway | If your organization already has a fax gateway, then the inbound faxes will generally be delivered as attachments to an email message, or as files in a folder. Manager can easily be configured to do the same. | Temenos have previously integrated with the RightFax fax gateway. |
| Web Services (SOAP) | Managerhas a SOAP API that lets external systems retrieve submissions (including their PDF, XML and attachments). This API can be called by any client that is SOAP-compliant. This approach has the advantage that no firewall holes are required since this is a pull invocation. |
Several of our customers have used the SOAP API in order to retrieve submissions. |
| TIA |
The Temenos Journey Manager platform includes a pre-built (but extensible) application known as the Integration Agent. This Java-based application uses the SOAP API to retrieve submissions from Manager, and deliver these into external systems. A number of standard integration end-points are provided, such as folder drop, or customers can customize TIA to perform any type of integration that is possible from Java. |
The Australian Dept of Industry uses TIA to deliver submissions into a number of different agencies in a multi-tenanted environment. This provides a level of separation between the Dept of Industry who manage and administer the system, and the agencies who only receive submissions destined for them. |
| ESB / Mulesoft | MuleSoft is an Enterprise Service Bus. Temenos has developed a Mule connector which uses the SOAP API to retrieve submissions from Manager. Once a submission has been retrieved, it can be easily integrated with any of the systems that Mulesoft supports, which are listed here: https://www.mulesoft.org/connectors Mulesoft also has a sophisticated data mapping tool for mapping data from one form to another. | |
| REST API | Manager has a REST API that that lets external systems retrieve submissions (including their PDF, XML and attachments). This is similar to the SOAP API, but is a more modern protocol, easier to use, and supports high availability architectures. | |
| TMRDC | The Manager REST Deliver Client is a very simple and self-contained application built in the Go language. It uses the REST API to retrieve submissions from a Manager server. The default implementation is to store these submissions in a folder/directory. However, source code is provided, and can be customized to perform other types of integrations. | |
| Groovy | Manager allows delivery integrations (and other types of integrations) using the Groovy scripting language. Groovy is a simple yet powerful scripting language that has been built into Manager. Groovy gives you access to many of the internal Java API's provided by Manager, and also has capabilities for calling third party services and systems, including REST and Web Service API's, so it is a powerful tool for building sophisticated integrations. Groovy is often used to "glue" Manager to another system, rather than being used as a programming language. A full set of the available Manager API's can be provided upon request if desired. | Examples!!! They abound. |
| Java | For even more sophisticated integrations, Manager allows Java modules to be developed and uploaded into Manager, where the methods they contain can be invoked at defined extension points. This provides access to the full power of Java, plus all of the Manager Java API's. |
In addition to these general purpose delivery mechanisms, several specific integrations have been developed for particular end-points.
These have been integrated into Manager as pre-built integrations, and they include:
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Delivery End-point
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Description
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|---|---|
| Microsoft SharePoint | This integration allows submissions to be delivered directly into a Sharepoint instance. |
| SalesForce |
This integration allows for:
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| Marketo | Creates or updates the visitor's Marketo LeadRecord using the submitted form data. |
| Adobe LiveCycle | Manager can deliver submissions directly into Adobe LiveCycle Process Management. Process Management is a BPM system that allows back-office business processes to be easily developed. |
Finally, Temenos staff and our customers have used some of the above capabilities to integrate with a large number of off-the-shelf and custom systems. Some of these include:
The Delivery Service extension point with Manager provides a number of built-in added value services, including:
Every unique form in Manager has an associated URL link that you can place on your site. Any user who clicks on the links will launch the form. You can also use the form URL in any other way such as in an email. You can also link to the form from any type of "form finder" technology, or a wizard that assists a customer to find the appropriate forms. You can also embed links to forms in outbound communications such as email or social networks.
Another way for customers to complete a form is to send a customer a link to a form that has already been partially completed on their behalf. Manager includes a Task API, that allows you to create a partially completed form, generate a custom URL, and then pass that URL to the end user. This can be used to "push" forms from CRM or other systems.
An older approach is to embed the Temenos Journey Manager platform form directly inside the organization's web site. This approach is rarely used, mostly because of the advent of smart-phones, which lack the screen real estate to display both the existing site and the form in the same screen. There are also other issues with this approach, including the importance of removing distractions and navigation links from the task-oriented process of completing the transaction, as well as the difficulty of effectively designing responsive user interfaces in two separate web pages that effectively work together.
Manager provides many different techniques for pre-filling forms. One of the simplest ways to implement this is to pass pre-population data as URL parameters in the URL that links to the form. These parameters can be customized on a per user basis in your existing web site if required. Another way is to retrieve pre-population data from data stored in cookies.
Alternately, Manager has many extension points where calls can be made to external systems, and the results of these calls can be injected into the form's data before it is presented to the user. The sequence diagram above highlights the key extension points. The extension points can be implemented as Java or Groovy calls to external systems. These extension points also have access to many of the internal Manager API's.
Manager implements a form receipt-number generation service, to ensure that each form has a unique code. This service can be configured to auto-generate different styles of receipt number, or it can be extended to call external systems to generate the receipt number. This allows the form receipt number to match a reference number in an existing system.
Manager implements several different techniques for passing identity from an existing system to Manager, including SSO/SAML, LDAP integration, and others. If the user's identity has been established, then calls can be made to back-end system using this identity to retrieve user-specific data, which can then be injected into the form before being presented to the user.
Once the user is actually within the form, we want to make their experience as streamlined as possible. One way we can do this is by designing and creating engaging, simple to use, guided experiences using Composer.
We can also streamline their experience by providing contextual data within the form that:
Usually this type of integration is provided by custom user interface widgets within the form itself. There are generally two different mechanisms that these widgets use to communicate to external systems.
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Mechanism
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Explanation
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|---|---|
| Direct |
The widget communicates directly to the third party service, usually (but not always) using JavaScript, REST and JSON. This is most useful for cloud-hosted third-party services that don't require usage keys, identity verification, or license/billing, and are not subject to security concerns. |
| Dynamic Data Service |
A Composer widget communicates with a standardized dynamic data service within Manager. The dynamic data service protocol is predefined, and uses JSON data as the payload. The dynamic data service then communicates to the desired back-end service to verify or retrieve data, perform a calculation, or verify data. The results are then passed back to the widget. Dynamic data services are useful for several scenarios:
Composer includes several pre-built widgets that support Dynamic Data calls, and custom widgets can also be created. |
| Hybrid | Occasionally it is useful to build widgets that use a combination of direct access and dynamic data services. For example, an initial call may use Dynamic Data to establish credentials with a third-party, but then use direct access to the third party service for greatest efficiency. |
Some examples of pre-built services that communicate with third-party services include:
Many our customers have used the generic Dynamic Data-aware widgets to expose their back-end web services, REST services, databases and bespoke systems in a variety of ways within the form.
Execution is largely about adding additional value to the overall transaction, after the basic data completion step has been completed. Some of these integrations are part of the process of completing the transaction, and are visible steps to the end users, whereas other types of integrations occur behind-the-scenes.
The following examples list some of the types of integrations that are possible at execution time with Transact.
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Integration
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Description
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|---|---|
| Electronic Signatures |
Manager can integrate with Electronic Signature providers in order to provide an improved level of signature compliance. (Note that Manager provides several types of electronic signature capability directly in our system, without requiring third-party services.) Manager has already been integrated with DocuSign and Silanis, but the same principles can be extended to similar electronic signature providers. Electronic signatures are usually implemented in one of two ways:
The immediate signature approach is a more seamless experience for the end user. However, the signature by email approach can have a higher level of identity for the signer, because it implicitly validates their email address. It is also generally the only way in which a document can be signed by multiple signers - this is usually supported by signature providers in either parallel or sequential flows. |
| Payment processing |
Many transactions require an associated payment. The application form will calculate the fee, and also specify what payment methods are available. When the form has been submitted, Manager will redirect the user to a payment provider's website, along with meta-data about the payment, such as the amount. This site is known as a Payment Gateway. The Payment Gateway will process the payment, and then redirect back to Transact, passing payment meta-data. Manager will inform the user of the outcome, as well as store the payment-meta-data to allow for reconciliation reports to be run. never stores or processes credit card or banking information directly. This is a specialist service that requires specific levels of security and privacy compliance, and is always performed by a specialist payment providers. Temenos Journey Manager platformhas built-in integrations with several providers, and other providers can be implemented as required. |
| Additional Verification | Additional Verification of the user's information for purposes such as credit scores or identity verification can be implemented within Manager itself. These can also be implemented post-delivery in the organization's back-end processes, but performing them within Manager provides the ability for the end-user to be informed of the result while they are still within the transaction, and therefore have an opportunity to retry the application and correct the information. |
| Review and Approval |
Manager includes a simple but powerful review and approval capability known as Collaboration Jobs. Transactions that have been completed by end users can be progressed through several review/approval steps, by different individuals or groups. Steps can also be designed to retrieve information, perform processing, or make decisions. Review and approval is often implemented in larger and more sophisticated BPM or Workflow systems, but the Review and Approval capability in Manager provides a number of benefits:
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Document Generation |
Manager produces a receipt automatically, in PDF format, providing a document of record for the customer and for the organization. Manager can produce a document of record using:
However, in some cases, the documents that need to be created are more sophisticated or different to what can be achieved in Manager natively. There are a number of systems known as Customer Communication Management systems which are designed to produce customer communication such as offers, receipts, contracts and information packs. These systems can be used by Manager to generate the document of record. |
It is very important to remember the consider why we do integration - we don't do integration just for the sake of it, we do integration order to provide specific value to the organization. Integration can often be the most time-consuming and costly part of any implementation. It's very easy to fall into the trap of doing integration because it's possible or seems obvious, but it is wise to always step back and consider what value integration is providing to the overall business objectives relative the cost of implementation and future maintenance.
Usually we do integration in order to achieve operational efficiencies. Integration usually saves humans from having to perform manual tasks, which in turn reduces costs. These efficiencies may be realized by the end-user (eg save typing and frustration through pre-population) or by the organization itself (save money and reduce errors by eliminating
A survey performed by the Forrester group in 2015 asked "What initiatives are likely to be your organization's top business priorities over the next 12 months?"
The top three responses were:
It is interesting that improving user experience is regarded as significantly more important than reducing costs. And that growing revenues is the most important criterion in the entire survey.
It is important to keep in mind that in many cases, the primary goal of implementing the Temenos Journey Manager platform is improving user experience, and growing revenue. You should therefore consider very carefully the value of doing integration compared to the cost. It may be that you can achieve a large proportion of the value of the Temenos Journey Manager platform without doing any integration.
We're not saying that you shouldn't do integration, just that you should be aware of the costs and the value.
Another factor to consider is time to market. Manager can be implemented very quickly, and realize important benefits such as improved user experience and improved conversion rates. However, integration, because it touches back-office systems, needs to be very carefully developed and tested, and this can often take a significant amount of time.
One common approach is to implement Manager with little or simple integration, and realize the primary benefits as early as possible. More sophisticated integration can then be performed at a slower and more careful pace - and because Manager delivers the data in XML format, it's easy to add integration later. Integration can be prioritized for the most important transactions first, with lower value or lower volume transactions deferred till later.
Some of our most successful implementations had started with minimal integration at the beginning, but over time the integration has been phased in separately.
Ideally the goal is to completely replace paper/images with all-digital transactions. However, in reality we rarely achieve 100% success - there are almost always going to be some customers who insist on hand-writing on paper. This means that you almost always needs to maintain your existing back-office processes which currently handle paper or images of paper.
Since you're going to need to maintain these back-office processes anyway, one useful approach is to augment or plug into these back-office processes using digital artefacts, rather than trying to create a completely all-digital back-office process. In other words, deliver a digital document (generally a PDF) into your existing paper- or image-based systems. If you do this, integration is usually very simple and quick.
Process re-engineering is costly. This is not just about technology, but about people, skills, training, management, and related costs. Overall change management is often overlooked, and can be hugely costly. You don't want to introduce a new digital channel, and at the same time, completely re-engineer your back-office processes. Instead, one option is to simply plug digital artefacts into existing back-office systems. You get the benefits of a new digital customer-experience, but you don't have to retrain anyone, build new processes and procedures and manuals, hire new staff with different skills, or put new managers in place. You have the opportunity to re-engineer and optimize your existing back office processes at a later time.
Our strong recommendation is not to combine process re-engineering with a (user-experience improvement) project, otherwise there is a possibility that both projects will fail. Process re-engineering and change management are hard and expensive, and shouldn't be embarked upon lightly.
Next, learn about Temenos Journey Manager platform development.