App Xchange for Products

Follow this strategic framework to design, build, and launch seamless integrations within the App Xchange ecosystem.

Use these phases to align your development with our onboarding requirements and ensure a frictionless experience for your first customer.

Design

Special consideration is needed when building an integration, as you must anticipate potential use cases and provide documentation and support. If any enhancements are needed, request them from App Xchange early.

Consult with an end user of the products or software to account for actual use cases and identify hidden human processing that might occur in current procedures.

For more information, see Best Practices for Integration Design.

Build

Use App Xchange's integration builder icon Integration Builder to build your integrationg product from prebuilt resources. Because building an integration is an iterative process, you will likely jump between steps when first setting one up.

  1. If necessary, create new connectors for your application using the Connector SDK or set up the HTTP connector. For more information, see HTTP or SDK and Build a Connector. This requires a publicly available API for your application, intermediate C# development skills, and a well-thought-out integration design.
  2. Create your integration using our integration builder at the account level. For more information, see Integration Builder.
    • Add connectors.
    • Add a feature.
    • Add a cache write service.
    • Add a schedule.
      Note: Schedules aren't on the same page in integration builder icon Integration Builder, but are logically related.
    • Add a flow.
    • Add configurations.
  3. Sync your integration to your development workspace to test your flows.
    • Activate the features.
    • Configure the connectors.
    • Perform an initial cache write.
    • Test and iterate.
    • Set the integration status.
    • Set the feature status.

Launch

Before launching your first integration to the public, you must familiarize yourself with features and protocols that you may not have encountered during the design or build phase.

  1. Review and exercise the customer deployment process.
    • Learn how connectivity is established to the target system.
    • Walk through the deployment tooling in a sandbox environment to understand the UI flow.
  2. Document the data security profile for your integration.
    • Identify exactly which tables and fields your integration needs to access.
    • Understand what system-specific security features your customers need to configure.

      Consider the examples of Vista and Spectrum. In Vista, the customer must create a Vista Service User and configure Data Type Security. In Spectrum, the customer must set up an Info-Link user, configure Data Exchange, and enable specific Web Services.

  3. Develop and validate onboarding documentation to send to customers.
    • Set customer expectations with a clear, step-by-step roadmap of their responsibilities.
    • Provide them steps to prepare their host system for integration.
    • Identify your audience. Multiple personas may need to participate in preparing the customer system.
    • Link to the App Xchange documentation where needed.
    • Peer-review this plan to ensure a non-technical user can follow your instructions.
  4. Optional: List your integration on Trimble Marketplace for enhanced visibility and co-selling opportunities. For more information, see List your Integration on Trimble Marketplace.

Once you've done the preparatory work to facilitate a successful launch (or if you've already launched an integration product), see Onboarding Customer Checklist - App Xchange for Products.