Document external systems, why the integration is needed, direction of data flow, owners, and data exchanged.
Purpose and Benefits
- Architecture clarity: Identifies external dependencies early.
- Development planning: Guides API/auth decisions and data flow.
- Risk reduction: Surfaces integration challenges sooner.
- Security planning: Highlights auth and data protection needs.
- Cross-team alignment: Clarifies ownership for each integration.
- Testing & monitoring: QA can validate exchanges and behaviors.
Recommended (Detailed) Integration & External Systems Template
| Purpose / Why needed | Direction | Owner / Team | System Name | Data Exchanged |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Process online payments for wallet transactions | Bi-directional | Payments Team | Payment Gateway | Payment authorization requests, transaction status, settlement confirmations |
| Verify customer identity during account creation | Outbound | Compliance Team | KYC Verification Service | Customer identity data, verification results |
| Send transactional notifications to users | Outbound | Messaging Team | Notification Service (Email/SMS) | Email addresses, phone numbers, notification content |
| Sync customer profile data across enterprise systems | Bi-directional | Data Integration Team | Customer CRM System | Customer profile information, account status updates |
| Provide authentication for mobile users | Bi-directional | Security Team | Identity Provider (OAuth/SSO) | Authentication tokens, user identity information |
Field Explanation
- Purpose / Why needed: Business or technical reason for the integration.
- Direction: Outbound, Inbound, or Bi-directional data flow.
- Owner / Team: Team responsible (Payments, Platform, Security, Integration).
- System Name: External API/platform (payment gateway, CRM, IdP, messaging).
- Data Exchanged: Types of data shared (transactions, identity, profiles, notifications).