Guiding Principle Highlight: Integration – Meeting Your Needs Now and in the Future
We often meet our clients at a critical juncture in the their board operations. They’ve decided to implement BoardEffect to improve a cumbersome paper process or transition from a different tool that is not meeting their needs. When clients first start using BoardEffect, their needs are very specific and targeted.
“We need to get this board book out for the next meeting.”
Often, this focus remains for the first few meetings until the organization settles into a rhythm with using the platform. Once the board is moving along at a regular cadence, we find the client’s needs begin to evolve. Instead of focusing on just “getting the book out,” organizations often look to incorporate other systems into BoardEffect. This can take the form of integrating external systems via our API or enhancing the login process via Single Sign On. And this is where our guiding principle of integration assists us when designing BoardEffect, allowing the platform to grow with organizations as their needs evolve.
Integration requests come up when organizations look to deepen the connections among tools in their technology ecosystem. Organizations are increasingly looking to build on the efficiencies gained when using technologies, like BoardEffect, across other areas of the enterprise. Single Sign On (SSO) is often the first integration that clients pursue in efforts to extend efficiency. The primary benefit of SSO is that it enhances the user experience by reducing password fatigue. Password fatigue can result from having to remember multiple accounts for different tools at your organization. By integrating BoardEffect with a tool like Active Directory, we can address login fatigue by consolidating login credentials and externally authenticating BoardEffect logins. Users can login to BoardEffect using the same credentials that they would use to login to their network. This is one less password the user needs to remember!
In addition to integrations like SSO, the platform also has an API that allows BoardEffect to communicate with other applications, e.g. CRM’s like Salesforce. This type of integration truly connects BoardEffect with other applications at your organization. For example, we often see clients who want to want to manage user contact information in a CRM like Salesforce and pass that information to BoardEffect. This type of integration achieves many things:
- It reduces duplicate data entry
- It keeps board materials separate from other systems
- It allows applications to focus on what they do best and share information when appropriate
We often see this come up with large associations who have hundreds of users. They save time and energy by integrating instead of managing separate systems!
We will be focusing on integrations in the coming months as we look to expand our offerings and deepen our ability to connect. Our design allows you to integrate when you are ready and we’d love to discuss the available options further. Our goal is to develop a platform that grows with you and expands to support the evolving needs of your board.
