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Technical Account Manager

Andy Mardell

Your company might already have security policies in place, but a quick refresher ensures nothing slips through the cracks. For Data Privacy Day this year, we’re giving you a checklist of security policies you need to keep on top of.

Grab your free checklist. No forms, no faff.

Download our free 8-point security checklist

These are our recommendations for all our clients. Depending on the value and sensitivity of your data, you might want to adjust the frequency to suit your needs.

How to ensure your apps and websites are secure

An annual penetration test from an independent third party identifies weaknesses in your code and server configuration. We always recommend one after completing a website or app build, plus annual reviews or tests following significant code changes. If you need help finding a pentest company, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a>.

1. Get a pentest – Yearly

Check who has admin access to your CMS or back office systems. Do they still need it? Could their permissions be downgraded from Admin to User level?And, every six months, have a spring clean. Review everyone with CMS or back office access. Ask if they still need it. Are their details current? When did they last change their password? If you have a Leaver Policy, add system removal to your off-boarding checklist.

2. Review CMS access – Quarterly

<a href="https://haveibeenpwned.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Have I Been Pwned</a> lets you search data breaches to see if your email or phone number has been compromised. This matters less if you use unique passwords for each account, but if you've reused passwords, a quick check here is worth five minutes.

3. Check if you’ve been Pwned – Bi-Yearly

2 Factor Authentication (2FA) requires a randomly generated code from your phone alongside your password. Once you've entered your credentials, you'll need your 2FA app to get the unique access code. Some of our top 2FA apps include <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/mobile-authenticator-app" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Microsoft Authenticator</a>, <a href="https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1066447?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Google Authenticator</a>, and <a href="https://getaegis.app/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Aegis Authenticator</a>.While you're at it, check your 2FA app and remove any old devices.

4. Use 2 Factor Authentication

We've all reused passwords or used obvious variations like 'Sunsh1ne', 'Sunsh2ne'. Password managers eliminate this risk by securely storing your passwords and auto-filling them. They're built into operating systems like macOS and browsers like Microsoft Edge. At Si digital, we use <a href="https://1password.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1Password</a>.

5. Use a password manager

Complex passwords take longer to crack. Mix upper and lowercase letters, special characters, numbers, and punctuation. With a password manager handling the heavy lifting, you won't need to remember them anyway.

6. Have a minimum password standard

Public Wi-Fi at coffee shops, hotels, or airports is convenient but risky. Hackers can intercept your data on unsecured networks. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts your connection, keeping your browsing and login credentials safe. This is particularly important when accessing your CMS or business systems remotely. Many businesses provide VPN access to their teams. If yours doesn't, ask your IT department about setting one up.

7. Use a VPN

This one's on us, and we often do it without you noticing. Keeping software, packages, and plugins current with the latest security patches is essential. Sometimes these updates happen in the background; other times they need thorough implementation and testing.

8. Carry out general updates

Data breaches happen almost daily. Even to the world's biggest and supposedly most secure companies. Just look at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/20/jaguar-land-rover-hack-factories-cybersecurity-jlr" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jaguar Land Rover</a> or <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93x16zkl9do" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Marks & Spencer</a>. There's never been a better time to review your security setup. These steps could prevent a serious headache.Got questions or need help? <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">Get in touch</a>.

What are you waiting for?

Lead Frontend Developer

Danny Walker

Payload is a modern headless CMS that uses powerful technologies like TypeScript, Node.js, and React—technologies that form the core of our frontend development stack. Its endless customisation options enable us to build tailored APIs and flexible content structures that perfectly match our clients' specific requirements.

What is Payload CMS?

We’ve seen countless benefits from Payload since we’ve been using it, and they’re benefits to both us and our clients. We’ve picked out our top seven benefits below:

The benefits of Payload CMS

A lot of our clients often come to us with a website and a few third-party SaaS systems they want to speak to their website, portal, or app, like <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/salesforce">Salesforce</a> or a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/payment-gateways">payment gateway</a>. Payload’s headless CMS features an Application Programming Interface (API) endpoint, and when paired with our Si Middleware, we can integrate systems into websites, portals, or apps with ease. It means data can be fetched, updated, and created quickly and easily, so our clients can access their data from the CMS anywhere they like.<a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">We integrate all sorts of third-party systems</a> into our client websites, and Payload makes the process a lot quicker and easier for both our clients and us. It’s a win-win situation.

1. Integration

Nobody wants to have to rebuild their website every year. Not only would it be costly and time-consuming, but it can be a jarring experience for your users too. Payload is a future-proofed CMS option. Using the latest TypeScript and Node technology, Payload is built to be secure and reliable. It receives regular updates as well, keeping everything running smoothly on your site.

2. Longevity

Websites can often be left in the same state for long periods of time, and this is often due to the pain of trying to get changes and code updated. Payload is built around flexible content modelling, which means it’s easier for our developers to quickly add features and fields to your website. This means websites can grow and scale at the same rate as your business, so your website never falls behind.

3. Flexibility

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Security is normally our clients’ top priority. Over the last few years, cyber attacks and hack rates have rocketed, meaning there’s more focus than ever before on keeping your website’s sensitive data safe and secure.Payload is self-hosted, which means you have control and oversight of all the data that the website holds and accesses. This is a huge benefit for companies that have websites that contain sensitive user data such as personal information. Your data is fully controlled by you, not a third-party service.

4. Security

Website performance is essential for success in the world of digital. Studies have found that around <a href="https://prerender.io/blog/page-speed-tips-and-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">40% of desktop users</a> will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load - and this number rises to 53% for mobile users. It’s also worth noting that search engines like Google <a href="https://www.debugbear.com/docs/page-load-time#what-is-a-good-page-load-time" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">penalise websites that take over 4 seconds to load</a>, pushing you further down the results list. The message is clear: the faster your website performs, the better chance you have of keeping visitors engaged with your content.Payload's headless CMS is optimised to load content and images quickly, especially when combined with Next.js static site generation. Users expect to find content quickly and easily—it's a fundamental UX principle that leads to higher conversion rates, and this performance boost ensures your users are getting to where they want to be quickly.But it’s not just your website’s users that can benefit from the performance boost. The backend of the CMS is lightning quick as well. Building out new pages can take a matter of minutes. Adding in blocks is instant, uploading images is rapid, and saving your page between edits is speedy, meaning clients spend less time waiting around for content and blocks loading in.

5. Performance

Quality is at the heart of everything we do here. Payload supports TypeScript, a powerful enhancement of JavaScript created by Microsoft, to ensure our code meets the highest standards. Its strict typing system helps us catch errors early and write more reliable code, resulting in robust and maintainable websites for our clients.

6. Quality

It’s important as ever to ensure your site performs well from an SEO perspective to ensure the correct users are finding your site. Improving rankings on Google and other search engines means more traffic to your site. Payload comes with a whole host of SEO tools built-in as standard, and they’re super easy to use.Its visual-led design tells you how your meta descriptions and images are performing, as well as giving you an SEO check score out of three. You can upload a custom meta image too to maximise impact. Payload will even give you a preview of how your page will look when it shows up on search listings.

7. SEO

Thanks to Payload’s flexibility, it’s a great option for many different types of websites across all sorts of industries. We’ve built massive websites with complex SaaS integrations like Harwin, to smaller brochure sites like our own. But Payload CMS is also a great option for content-rich websites and blogs, membership platforms, internal enterprise tools, and much more.

What type of site would benefit from a Payload CMS?

From flexibility to security to SEO, Payload excels at being a slick, optimised CMS for our clients that lets them reap the rewards of a fully optimised website. Moving CMS is never an easy decision, and usually involves a full website rebuild and redesign, but the benefits can be huge. Payload is an excellent example of how a CMS should be, and as a modern agency, we’ve loved every minute of our move across to Payload.If you’ve got a website you’re thinking of rebuilding and want to move across to Payload, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a>.

Conclusion

Have a read of some of our other articles

The benefits of choosing Payload CMS for your business’s next website

Lead Designer

Sam Leonard-Rendell

Since its announcement at WWDC in June, Apple’s new Liquid Glass UI design for its 2026 (and beyond) operating systems has proved polarising. With its transparent, content-manipulating effects and reactive components, it’s a bold step away from the flat, static look we’ve grown accustomed to since Apple launched iOS 7 back in 2013, and an even bolder progression from the skeuomorphic designs we were used to before that.But what if we’ve been looking at Apple’s Liquid Glass in the wrong way? This isn’t about surface-level design trends or flashy animations. It’s about the future of technology and how we interact with it.

Apple’s Liquid Glass design language was launched yesterday with iOS 26, and as the world installs this new design system onto their phones, watches, headsets, tablets, laptops, and TVs, it’ll take time for users to adjust to this new look and way of interacting with their devices.What many people haven’t yet realised is that the way we interact with our devices is changing. With virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) becoming more prevalent, the line between the real world and the digital world is beginning to blur more and more. The <a href="https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/infographics/virtual-reality-market-101378" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VR industry is expected to be worth $123bn</a> by 2032. To put that into context, it was only worth $16.32bn in 2024. So, the transition in UI design as we focus more on VR & AR is inevitable, and likely for the good of the usability of those devices in the future.When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, we were at a similar juncture for UI and UX, but we didn't realise it at the time. We’d been using clunky phones with physical keyboards and untouchable content for decades, and suddenly we had a device where we could touch the content we were interacting with. Note-taking, calendars, compasses, and more. Getting users to understand this resulted in skeuomorphic design – a style that brought relatable, understandable, real-world context to digital applications and interactions. It was about educating users in a manageable way that didn’t feel a million miles away from using a real notepad or a real calendar.

A new era for UI design begins today

After six years of training us, Apple made the move away from skeuomorphic design across to flat design with iOS 7. That style has developed, changed, and grown into what we’ve now become familiar with in iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and visionOS 2. Liquid Glass might look like pure visual polish, but it’s doing something much more important: teaching us a new way to interact. Just as skeuomorphism helped us move away from physical buttons to touchscreens, Liquid Glass is quietly preparing us for a future that isn’t restricted to screens at all. We’re moving into a new era where digital worlds are layered over the real world, and how we interact with it depends on more than just our fingertips. This shift needs a different kind of interface. One that listens, watches, and responds. It feels alive. This is where multimodal UI design comes in.

Multimodal UI design language relies on more than just a single input, like touch. It’s built around voice, gaze, movement, and touch. It’s this that bridges the gap between what we know as an OS, and what an OS will become. Take visionOS, or Meta Horizon OS. Both are examples of multimodal interfaces. Not only is the content overlaid onto the real world, it’s controlled by the direction you’re looking, or by your voice as you ask it to perform an action or task. And, especially in vision OS, these overlaid interface elements are designed to interact and work with the world around them, rather than just sitting on top.

Liquid Glass isn’t just multimodal, it’s reactive. Built around a system of free-floating elements and components, the interface dynamically adjusts to how you use it. These elements aren’t locked to a fixed screen either; they appear when you need them and fade away when you don’t.It’s this fluidity that makes Liquid Glass the ideal UI for overlaying on the real world. Elements can subtly sink into the surroundings when idle and reappear when they’re relevant. If your environment changes, the UI responds and reveals what’s behind it by taking a step back. It’s a design system that’s as understanding and perceptive as you are.Apple’s approach is also about unifying an experience across their device ecosystem. As all these devices begin to merge into a spatial realm, consistency will be key. Liquid Glass isn’t limited to iPhones; it’s become the universal design language used across all of Apple’s devices. This is an important shift. Historically, Apple has tended to update the iPhone and iPad visual designs ahead of the Mac. For example, when Apple launched its flat design system with iOS 7, macOS Mavericks still maintained its skeuomorphic design. The fact Apple is rolling Liquid Glass out across its entire suite of operating systems sends a clear message: this is the future, and it’s starting now.

In contrast, Google has taken a <a href="https://blog.google/products/android/material-3-expressive-android-wearos-launch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">very different approach</a> with its latest design system, Material 3. Its punchy colours, expressive typographic treatments, and bold graphic devices feel optimised for rectangular screens. Perfect for phones and tablets. But as we move into a world where interfaces begin to extend beyond the screen, this look and feel will quickly fall behind and become limiting.Material 3 is firmly rooted as a visual language for traditional devices. It’s difficult to imagine these vibrant, highly-saturated colours and decorative sticker-like layers translating to spatial environments or multimodal interfaces where the UI has to adapt to different lighting, varying depths, and real-world context.Compared to Apple’s Liquid Glass design system, Material 3 feels like it was designed solely for mobile-era aesthetics. We imagine it’ll only be a matter of time before Android follows suit.

Material 3: Beautifully screen-bound

Despite its future-focussed foundations, Liquid Glass is a polarising design language, and this is primarily for two reasons: accessibility and its association with past design trends. Stylistically, it’s been compared to Windows Vista, which launched in 2007 with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new design style called Aero</a>. Aero marked a dramatic move away from the blocky era of Windows XP, and just like Liquid Glass today, it divided opinion. But the intent behind Liquid Glass is very different to Windows Vista. Windows Vista was about reskinning a system users were already very familiar with to make it feel more modern. Liquid Glass is about the shift from screens to spatial, immersive experiences.Accessibility is a much bigger concern. With its glassy, translucent design, Liquid Glass definitely poses some issues with legibility and contrast, especially against high-contrast backgrounds. This is surprising coming from Apple. They’ve long been seen as leaders when it comes to inclusive design; <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/accessibility/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">it’s one of their core values</a>.However, it’s important to remember that Apple gives users a deep level of accessibility customisation so they can hone their devices to work for them. And Apple has always made iterative improvements as time goes on. Remember when iOS 7’s animations were <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-ios-literally-making-users-sick/story?id=20385379" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">making users motion sick</a>? Or when users said the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/fonts-dont-lie-thin-ios-7-os-x-flna6c10245346" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">system typefaces were too thin</a>? Apple responded by adjusting the design language.Liquid Glass is following a similar path. We’re entering uncharted territory with spatial, multimodal user interfaces. There will be missteps. But just as with past transitions, refinement will come with time, and with real-world feedback from users pushing the boundaries of how we interact beyond screens.

Growing pains

While <a href="https://www.techtimes.com/articles/309937/20250409/apple-vision-pros-sales-flop-theyre-rushing-out-new-one-m5-chip-before-2025-ends.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple Vision Pro has been a slow burner</a>, it’s still early days for spatial and multimodal UI design, but one thing is clear – the UI of tomorrow won’t live on screen. We’re moving into a new era where interfaces live around us, watching, listening, and responding as we interact with them and the world around us. And design systems won’t just be about aesthetics or branding; they’ll need to feel native and reactive to real-world environments, natural movement, and human behaviour.Liquid Glass is the start of a much bigger shift in design and how we interact with our devices. By introducing translucency, depth, and movement into today’s rectangular screen boundaries, it’s preparing us all for a world where interfaces are responsive and immersive, and not restricted to a glass rectangle.Brands that embrace multimodal, spatial design languages now will be the ones who lead in the years ahead as our digital and physical worlds blend together. And users will expect that to feel natural. As for designers and developers, those of us who understand this early and adopt this design ethos will define what’s coming next.

The UI of tomorrow won’t live on screen

Why you’re looking at Apple’s Liquid Glass UI the wrong way

8 ways to tighten website and app security

It’s time to rethink what SaaS integration really means. In our experience, <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">bespoke integrations</a> offer significantly more value, not just technically, but strategically. Done right, they foster growth, reduce risk, and unlock innovation. For businesses using SaaS tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Monday.com, connecting these systems to your digital products isn’t optional; it’s business-critical. Without it, you’re left with work duplication, spiralling operational costs, and growing data silos. <a href="https://www.xplm.com/news/press/industry-study-2023-companies-cannot-control-their-data-silos/?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">XPLM found that</a> 76% of businesses say data silos negatively impact collaboration, with a further 74% viewing them as a competitive disadvantage.

There are essentially three ways to approach integrating your SaaS systems with your website, portal, or app: out-of-the-box, which uses a system’s pre-built features; standard API integration, which takes the SaaS system’s own API and allows you to connect it to your digital products; or the advanced bespoke integration route, which is completely custom and unique to your business and its needs.

What is an advanced bespoke integration?

We’re advocates of going down the advanced bespoke integration route for a few reasons. Let’s break down how going bespoke could benefit your business and its workflows.

If updating data in multiple places is something you’re familiar with, then an advanced integration could cut down on your admin tasks. Using our own middleware, we can get your SaaS systems to speak to one another for super smooth data flows. This means you’ll only need to update your data in one place, rather than four or five places. This not only cuts back on tedious admin time, but it also means you’ll be able to rely on your data more because there’s less chance of human error when inputting the data.By cutting back on this sort of admin, you could free up members of your team to focus on more important tasks, like following up on valuable leads.

Reduce manual work and reclaim time

Advanced integrations can help your business to cut back on costs, too. The key contributor to this comes from the reduction of manual work, which in turn results in lower labour costs. Thanks to automations, tasks like data entry, reporting, and invoicing can be heavily reduced. But the cost savings don’t stop there. You could end up needing fewer software licences if you can consolidate some of your SaaS systems when integrating. Or you can potentially cut back on costly errors caused by manual data entry, which cost both time and money. And you can boost customer retention thanks to an improved customer experience via streamlined support and invoicing, reducing your customer churn rate.So integrating can cut costs in various ways across the board for your company, giving you more money to use elsewhere to promote business growth and development.

Cut hidden costs across teams and tools

Plug-and-play integrations seem convenient and quick to implement at first glance because they’re designed and built for the masses, not your business needs. They usually come with pre-defined functionality and (more often than not) poor design and UX, so you’ll find it difficult to tailor them to your workflows, customer journeys, or user experience. This will result in a disconnect between your digital products. Your CRM, website, and internal systems may speak to one another, but they won’t truly ‘talk’ to one another because they’re not aligned or efficient.Let’s look at an example. You may want to trigger a personalised onboarding sequence when a user signs up to your website, which pulls in data from various SaaS platforms. But, your out-of-the-box integration doesn’t have the functionality for custom data fields, so you get stuck with a watered-down version of what you really need.Even if you decide to use a SaaS platform’s native API, you’ll have your wings clipped by the API’s scope. Some data endpoints might be read-only, batch processes can be delayed, or some features just aren’t available via the API. So you’ll technically have a connected system, but the flexibility and customisation of what you can achieve is limited.Bespoke integrations are designed and built entirely around your business and its workflows. From the way your business operates, to what your customers and users expect, to the efficiencies you want to gain by integrating. You get complete control over how the integration functions, the design, and the logic behind it to bring together your systems to work in harmony.Want to sync your customer data in real-time between your website, CRM, and ERP with custom field mapping? Or pull data from a third-party system to dynamically display pricing in your customer portal? It’s all possible with an advanced integration.Beyond the functionality benefits, a bespoke integration is built to be robust and scalable, so it grows with your business. You won’t need to rely on temporary workarounds or third-party plugins that might break; you’re investing in a long term digital solution.

Aligned with your business goals

Automation is probably one of the key features of an SaaS integration. It underpins the whole idea of integrating your systems. Being able to automate some of your business’s processes can save your team valuable time. Automations allow your data to move instantly between your SaaS systems and your digital products. So you’ll not need to wait for overnight exports or manual updates. You’re always working with live information. Forget having to sync that data; your integration does that now. <a href="https://www.kerrconsulting.com/unlocking-the-benefits-average-roi-on-moving-to-cloud-based-software-solutions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kerr Consulting found</a> that many businesses say they save around 40% of their time by automating routine tasks through SaaS integrations with their digital products.

Turn disconnected data into automated workflows

Because bespoke integrations are built around you and your customers, we can create a seamless and personalised user experience on your website. Whether that’s real-time account information, customised dashboards that dynamically pull in live data, or live product availability, the possibilities are endless, and all a great way to give your users the best possible experience.This also helps cement a strong relationship with customers because you set yourselves apart from competitors who lag behind in these user experience areas.

Provide a seamless, personalised customer experience

We build our advanced bespoke integrations using our Si Middleware—our flexible connection hub that sits between your SaaS systems and your website, portal, or app. Thanks to its flexibility, we can scale up your integrations as your business grows. So, if your business decides to start using a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/asset-management-software">Digital Asset Management</a> system like Bynder, or you introduce a new CRM system like Monday.com, we can link those up to your digital products with ease, so your data keeps flowing without interruption, and you can streamline your workflows.Or, if you need to scale down because you’ve moved data across to one of your other SaaS systems, our Si Middleware allows for that too. So your SaaS systems are always flexing with your business.

Scale with confidence, not complexity

Our advanced SaaS integrations are proven to save businesses time and money. Just take a look at our case studies, like <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">Harwin</a>. They’ve seen incredible results for both them and their customers.If you’re ready to move beyond disjointed SaaS tools and start scaling your business, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch for a free integration consultation</a>.

See what an advanced integration looks like in action

Founder & Managing Director

Steve Piper

Compatibility is probably one of the most common issues when it comes to integrating your SaaS system, especially if you’re trying to integrate with other third-party software. So, compatibility problems like mismatched naming conventions, syncing issues, or poor lead segmentation can create endless headaches or require lots of fiddly admin to resolve. Some SaaS systems, like Salesforce, can also have problems connecting with some older versions of Microsoft Outlook.An advanced bespoke integration can help mitigate compatibility issues because you have complete control of where the data points to and from. And there’s also functionality to manually—as well as automatically—synchronise data, so data transfer is seamless.

1. Compatibility

Depending on the SaaS enterprise software you’re using, accessing API documentation can be tricky, and then trying to find the details you need within that can be time-consuming. This can cause lengthy delays, bugs, and other technical issues. This can be even more complex if you’re trying to share data between different SaaS systems, for example, HubSpot and Salesforce.When we build our advanced bespoke integrations, we use our custom Si Middleware to facilitate the connections, so we don’t need to track down API documentation, and more importantly, our clients don’t need to worry about finding it either. Our Si Middleware is built and maintained by us, so we know it like the back of our hand, so if there are any issues, we can quickly identify and fix them without having to refer to complex documentation.

2. API Documentation

As your business grows and expands, you’ll more than likely come to rely on your SaaS software more and more. So, your integration needs to scale and adapt to suit. This can bring with it some very technical challenges, and often out-of-the-box API integrations limit what you can do, or your agency will struggle to push beyond the boundaries of what they’re already using. This leaves you with one option: advanced bespoke integration.With an advanced bespoke integration, you can introduce or remove SaaS system connections, so as your business grows, you can keep your data flowing smoothly between your various SaaS solutions. And, if you find the business needs to move to a different SaaS system, that can easily be connected too. So you won’t need to go through the pain of a full rebuild, or spend more of your marketing budget on rebuilding parts of your existing system.

3. Scalability

When it comes to data capture via forms, out-of-the-box integration solutions seem like a great option, but what about security? Data that’s collected from forms using out-of-the-box integrations can easily be manipulated and modified, which creates all sorts of data security issues for businesses, especially when it comes to GDPR. These standardised forms are also susceptible to spam bots, meaning your database will quickly fill up with useless data.An advanced integration improves security by allowing for secure authentication and spam protection, so you won’t have to spend hours sifting through data to ensure it’s valid. You’ll also know the data is secure and safe. One less thing to worry about.

In terms of performance, fetching and serving data is a key area where your integration needs to be quick and seamless. Relying on an out-of-the-box integration means you’re also relying on a third-party API, which can be slow at getting the data you and your users need to the right places.We’ve built our Si Middleware to handle all of this for us with our advanced bespoke integrations. We’ve streamlined the API so it’ll only be using what it needs, so data transfer is rapid with little to no delay. This has a huge benefit for both your business and your users. For you, it means the data you update elsewhere is virtually instantly updated everywhere else, and for your users it means they’re always seeing the latest, most up-to-date information available.

Maintaining your SaaS integrations is vital to ensuring it works at peak performance, is keeping data secure, and is aligning with any changes the SaaS system implements. But maintaining your integration can be complicated and time-consuming, especially when you’re dealing with a standard API provided by the SaaS developer.Here at Si digital, we provide ongoing maintenance and support to ensure your business’s SaaS integration with your website, portal, or app is always up-to-date and running efficiently. Thanks to our bespoke Si Middleware, this is mostly under our control, so we keep on top of maintenance for you regularly. Find out more about our <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/support/retained">ongoing support services here</a>.

6. Maintenance

When it comes to advanced bespoke SaaS integrations, we know it can be complex, and it has to be beneficial to your business’s growth plans. So we take a consultative approach to bringing your integration to life. Using our <a href="http://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday™ framework</a>, we use our two decades of expertise to bring you a solution that aligns with your business goals and KPIs.We’ve worked with <a href="http://sidigital.co/work/harwin">clients like Harwin</a> and Norbain so they can maximise their SaaS software throughout their business to improve internal processes, reduce admin, and cut costs, leaving them with more time to focus on business development, new products, and lead generation.If you want to capitalise on your SaaS enterprise software integration, you can <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">find out more about how we can help here</a>, or <a href="http://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch to book a consultation</a>.

How we can help your business solve these challenges

The top 6 SaaS integration challenges and how to solve them

It’s estimated that <a href="http://pages.bettercloud.com/rs/719-KZY-706/images/2020_StateofSaaSOpsReport.pdf?mkt_tok=NzE5LUtaWS03MDYAAAF8LQdmoC7u54xbqxNwp0au4Zk7SiYaaqq2vupXFxCvaP5vY8gSQtlGFsUsRI8oj5Fl2m5PwIZUUAlzVZL_-hUEQ2RdNqgEzDAmZA5bZtowS_v-zMs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">85% of business apps will be SaaS-based</a> by the end of 2025, so keeping all your data, information, and details in check could become a more time-consuming headache very soon. So it’s ironic that <a href="http://pages.bettercloud.com/rs/719-KZY-706/images/2020_StateofSaaSOpsReport.pdf?mkt_tok=NzE5LUtaWS03MDYAAAF8LQdmoC7u54xbqxNwp0au4Zk7SiYaaqq2vupXFxCvaP5vY8gSQtlGFsUsRI8oj5Fl2m5PwIZUUAlzVZL_-hUEQ2RdNqgEzDAmZA5bZtowS_v-zMs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">54% of businesses</a> introduce SaaS systems to help improve productivity, but the more systems they add, the less productive they become. That’s why integrating your SaaS enterprise software could be the solution to reducing admin, cutting costs, and increasing productivity across the board. Goodbye admin, hello business growth.We’ve worked with various clients over the years to help them integrate their third-party SaaS services and CRMs into their business’s website, app, or portal. And we’ve seen just how beneficial it can be for the client firsthand.

A growing trend 

When it comes to deciding how to integrate, there are three options: out-of-the-box integrations that use the SaaS platform’s pre-built features, a standard API integration, or an advanced bespoke integration. Let’s break them down…

Types of integrations

An out-of-the-box integration essentially takes a SaaS platform’s pre-built features and connects it with your website. This can be a relatively straightforward task that’s easy to set up and could be implemented by internal teams or by working with some agencies. But there are some drawbacks, including:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Limited data handling</li><li value=2>Poor user experience</li><li value=3>Reduced security</li><li value=4>Single-direction data transfer</li><li value=5>Limited customisation</li></ul>While this might seem like a quick win, the limitations can become tedious and challenging, preventing your business from really utilising the full potential of your SaaS platform. And you could still be left with lots of backend admin and housekeeping, so you might not even save your company much time.

Out-of-the-box integration

Most SaaS enterprise software products will provide their own APIs that users can use to connect their SaaS platform with their website, portal, or app. Compared to an out-of-the-box integration, this can have benefits including:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Better data handling</li><li value=2>Improved user experience</li><li value=3>Tighter security</li><li value=4>Improved customisation</li></ul>But these integrations still have some serious drawbacks. For example, they’re very complex to set up, so your team will need a good level of technical knowledge about the API and platform you’re using. You may even need a specialist to help you out. And it gets even more complex if your business needs the API to connect to other third-party systems. So this can quickly become a complicated and time-consuming task that still won’t offer you the best utilisation of your SaaS platform.

Standard API integration

If you want to make full use of your SaaS platform, beyond standard form handling or CRM syncing, an advanced bespoke integration is the way to go. Using a completely custom API, you can connect more than just your core SaaS software to your website—you can also connect with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, Product Information Management (PIM) software, Digital Asset Management (DAM) software and custom APIs, creating a central, automated hub for all your data that then powers your websites, apps, portals and internal tools. This comes with countless time-saving and cost-saving benefits:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Flexibility – supports any custom use case</li><li value=2>Centralised – use your main SaaS system, like Salesforce, as a single source of truth for all your data across different systems</li><li value=3>Real-time – enables real-time, personalised updates</li><li value=4>Automated – enables the use of automation tools that are built into the SaaS system</li><li value=5>Complex relationships – supports complex object relationships and workflows</li><li value=6>Scalable – can be scaled up and down as your business grows and changes</li></ul>Advanced bespoke integrations are highly complex because they’re built around your business’s unique needs, so they need some level of ongoing maintenance to ensure the integration works efficiently and correctly all the time, but the benefits speak for themselves, especially when it comes to cutting back on tedious admin so you can focus on business growth.

Advanced bespoke integrations

Here at Si digital, we believe that if you pay for a SaaS service like Salesforce or HubSpot, you should be able to utilise every aspect of it, so fully bespoke integrations with your website, app, or portal are the way to go. But integrating your SaaS enterprise software can be a daunting task.We’ve been working with our clients for the last two decades to build them bespoke websites with complex integrations, and we use our <a href="http://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday™ framework</a> to work efficiently and effectively. Faraday™ allows us to bring our clients solutions that help them to meet their internal business targets, KPIs, and goals—so they know we’re all working in the same direction.When it comes to <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">bespoke integrations</a>, we’ve built our own custom Si Middleware. It works a little like a connection hub for your computer. We use it as a central point to connect all your business’s SaaS systems to your website, app, and portal, so data can flow quickly and easily between your various systems and platforms. Our Si Middleware is also scalable and flexible, so if your business finds it needs to use a new SaaS system, we can easily connect it up with everything else. Check out the diagram below to see how all the different elements of our Si Middleware work.

How advanced bespoke integrations work

One of our biggest SaaS successes has been our <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">work with Harwin</a>, where we not only designed and built them a new website but also integrated their Salesforce system with their new website.Beyond the standard integration functionality, we built a bespoke integration that synchronises over 4,000+ products with their CRM and website, as well as integrating with other SaaS systems like Bynder (DAM), TraceParts (3D CAD models) and SnapMagic (PCB Footprints). And the benefits have been outstanding.

Results

The integration has also had benefits internally. It’s dramatically reduced the amount of admin the team has to carry out to update product details, allowing them to focus on growing their business and following up on valuable leads. Harwin proves exactly how a seamless Salesforce integration can help to drive business growth.Read more about <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">how we helped Harwin here</a>.If integrating your SaaS systems sounds like something your business could benefit from, you can <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">find out more about how we can help here</a>, or <a href="http://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch to book in a consultation</a>.

What is a SaaS enterprise system integration and how can it drive business growth?

Why out-of-the-box SaaS integrations are holding your business back

For the last few years, we’ve been using a relatively new headless Content Management System (CMS) called Payload. <a href="https://sidigital.co/lab-notes/why-weve-swapped-wordpress-for-payload">We made the shift from traditional CMS</a> options, like WordPress, so we can provide our clients with a modern, more secure way to manage their website content. Our move across to Payload is about more than just keeping up-to-date; it’s about ensuring our client projects are built using the most robust CMS available.But, for a lot of our clients, it can be a difficult decision to move away from a familiar CMS like WordPress, so to help make the decision easier, we’ve built our own Payload demo. We call it our Payload Playground. <a href="https://sidigital.co/payload-playground">Book your 1-2-1 tour here</a>.

Payload is a modern CMS option, first launched in 2022, and is a modern-day answer to the historic problems of older CMS platforms like WordPress and Drupal. Payload is streamlined, secure, and scalable, giving you the peace of mind that it’ll last for years to come.It’s also very user-friendly. The admin area is clear, concise and well structured, allowing for quick and easy page building, image uploads, and content changes. It’s a big step forward from traditional CMS user interfaces, with near-instant load times, live previewing, and so much more. There’s a familiar look to Payload, too. The admin area follows a similar structure to the likes of WordPress, so it’s quick and easy to pick up and learn.

What is Payload?

We’ve covered a <a href="https://sidigital.co/lab-notes/the-benefits-of-choosing-payload-cms-for-your-next-website">whole host of benefits in a separate Lab Note</a>, but here’s a quick look at our top three reasons to move to Payload.

Why Payload?

With cyber attacks and hacks becoming an <a href="https://aag-it.com/the-latest-cyber-crime-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">increasingly serious problem in recent years</a>, the importance of keeping your website and its data secure couldn’t be more essential. Unlike a lot of alternative CMS options, Payload is designed to be a self-hosted CMS, so you have complete oversight and control of the data the website contains and accesses.Self-hosting a website means you have control over where the site is installed, so you can choose your own servers, databases, and infrastructures. This means you control the data, not a third-party company. This is especially important for companies and businesses that handle sensitive user data like payment details or personal information.Self-hosting can be a huge benefit when it comes to data security, but we also offer hosting and data security here at Si digital too, using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cloudflare. <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/support/hosting-and-data-security">Find out more here</a>.

1. Data Security

Older CMS options like WordPress can often hold back the growth of your website. As the site expands and you add in new pages and introduce more content, it can become slow and clunky. Eventually, this will reach a point where it becomes too much of a chore to maintain the website.Thankfully, Payload uses the latest TypeScript and Node technology, which helps keep everything ticking over smoothly in the background. It’s also regularly updated with bug fixes and new features that ensure your site will stay running for years to come.Payload also features flexible content modelling, which makes it easy for our developers to add new features, so your website is always scaling and flexing as your business grows.

2. Scalability

If, <a href="https://www.saasacademy.com/blog/saas-statistics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">like most businesses</a>, you use SaaS systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Monday.com, we can work with you to integrate these systems with your website, portal, or app for seamless data exchange between your various systems and your digital endpoint. We do this using our Si Middleware, which lets us connect multiple systems together for a completely bespoke solution for you and your business.

3. Integration

<a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">We’ve done exactly this for Harwin</a>, a world-leading electrical connector manufacturer. Not only did we move them over from WordPress to Payload, we integrated their Salesforce system, Bynder asset management system, and various other systems with their website. Not only does this mean their data is up-to-date across the board, it’s also streamlined many of their internal processes, saving them countless hours of valuable time.Find out more about our <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">integration services here</a>.

If your current website CMS is slow, insecure, and always needing plugin updates, now is the right time to move to Payload. But before you make the jump, book a 1-2-1 tour with us to see what Payload could mean for your website.When you book your tour, we’ll take you on a guided tour of the CMS to show you the key benefits, answer any of your questions, and much more. You’ll also get the opportunity to try Payload out for yourself. We’ll give you exclusive access to our demo so you can see the benefits for yourself.<a href="https://sidigital.co/payload-playground">Book your 1-2-1 tour here.</a>

Book your 1-2-1 tour of our Payload Playground

It’s been a rough <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/27/24256361/wordpress-wp-engine-drama-explained-matt-mullenweg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">couple of weeks for WordPress</a>—it’s found itself at the centre of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/12/24268637/wordpress-org-matt-mullenweg-acf-fork-secure-custom-fields-wp-engine" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">quite a big a media storm</a>. We’ve gradually been moving away from WordPress to <a href="https://payloadcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Payload</a> over the last year or so, and in this Lab Note we take a look at why we’re making the move and how it benefits both us and our clients.

We’re always looking for new and exciting ways to improve our development processes and provide clients with the absolute best quality product we can. Part of this has involved transitioning our choice of content management system (CMS) from WordPress to Payload.Payload is a <a href="https://www.sanity.io/headless-cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">headless CMS</a> built using <a href="https://www.typescriptlang.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TypeScript</a>, <a href="https://nodejs.org/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Node.js</a> and <a href="https://react.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">React</a>—all of which we’re familiar with. It’s also highly customisable, which means we can create custom APIs and very flexible content models that adapt to whatever our clients need.When we first began looking into moving beyond WordPress, we researched a few different options, including Contentful and Sanity. We knew what we were looking for, and had a few criteria to meet. Firstly, we wanted a platform that’s reliable, secure and well maintained. These are all core values that benefit both us and our clients.Secondly, whatever platform we chose needed to be scalable across sites large and small. We didn’t want to choose a platform that might limit us in the future.This is where Payload really came into it’s own. So let’s take a look at some of the benefits of Payload in a bit more detail.

When it comes to our clients, as an agency we like to make sure we’re offering the absolute best solution to their problems. And Payload definitely helps with this. There’s a few key areas that Payload really excels in…<h3>Performance</h3>Every website should perform well, especially when it comes to site speed. On average, <a href="https://prerender.io/blog/page-speed-tips-and-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">around 40% of desktop</a> users will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. That jumps up to 53% for users on mobile devices.This is where Payload’s headless CMS comes into play. Because it’s so streamlined, it’s typically faster at loading content and images, especially when paired with Next.js static site generation. This is a huge benefit to our clients. Getting users to the content they want quickly and seamlessly is a key UX principal, and ultimately results in higher conversions.<h3>Same Flexibility</h3>Payload offers the same flexibility as WordPress. Being able to easily adapt and add to our sites is an important part of what we offer to our clients. Payload’s flexible content modelling allows us to quickly and easily add features and fields to any site, meaning it can scale and grow quickly and smoothly.<h3>Modern</h3>Payload is built with the very latest versions of TypeScript and Node. This means it’s updated regularly with security and bug fixes to keep your site and data safe. It also means it integrates well with other Javascript frameworks, like Next.js.<h3>Self-hosted</h3>Payload is self-hosted, meaning we have control over and oversight of all the data the site contains and accesses. This is crucial for companies and sites that contain sensitive user data.<h3>APIs</h3>When it comes to Application Programming Interface (API) integration, Payload’s headless CMS features an API endpoint. This means we can quickly and easily fetch, update and create data from any website or app. It also means our clients can use the data from the CMS anywhere they like.<h3>Familiarity</h3>Moving to a new CMS can be a bit daunting, but Payload brings with it a familiar way of working when compared to the likes of WordPress. It’s a field-based CMS, so building pages and adding content is an experience a lot of our clients are already familiar with.<h3>Version control</h3>Version control allows us to track and manage changes to our code over time. Every time we make a change to the codebase, we push this up to GitHub where it’s reviewed before being pushed to live. It’s an extra level of safety that means everything is sense-checked before it goes out into the world.<h3>Customisable</h3>It might seem trivial, but the Payload CMS can be fully customised and branded up to match your company’s brand identity.<h3>Quality</h3>Quality is what drives us as an agency. Thanks to TypeScript, we know we’re writing quality code every time. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, designed and developed by Microsoft. But, when compared to JavaScript, TypeScript provides us with more consistency and reliability thanks to it’s stricter rules. This means less room for error and a high-quality output.

Endless benefits

Since we’ve started working with Payload, we’ve seen countless benefits. From its customisation and flexibility through to its integrations and security, we’re loving developing and building with it. If you want to take a look at an example of a site we’ve built using Payload, head over to <a href="https://www.harwin.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Harwin site we built</a>. In contrast, our own website is also built with Payload. It’s much smaller than the Harwin website, but still offers the same Payload perks that we love. This is a great example of how scalable and flexible Payload is, and how adaptable it is depending on the size of the site.We’re really looking forward to seeing what more we can do with Payload in the future and how we can pass on the benefits to our clients. If you’re looking for a website rebuild, give us a shout to arrange a consultation.

Moving forward with Payload

Why we’ve swapped WordPress for Payload

Is your website CMS holding you back? Try our Payload Playground

For over <a href="https://www.saasacademy.com/blog/saas-statistics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">80% of businesses</a>, a SaaS system has become a core part of their day-to-day operations, with larger organisations of <a href="https://financesonline.com/saas-software-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">10,000+ employees using an average of 447</a> SaaS systems within their businesses. This can quickly become an admin nightmare, a data disaster, and a costly expense. Check out the top time and money savings perks below.

Nobody likes tedious data admin, and managing data stored across multiple SaaS systems can be a chore to keep on top of and maintain. This could be product data stored in various systems, images and videos stored in a digital asset management system like <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/asset-management-software">Bynder</a>, and customer data stored somewhere else like <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/salesforce">Salesforce</a> or HubSpot. It can quickly become messy, clunky, and confusing.By automating tasks like data entry, invoicing, and reporting with an advanced SaaS integration, you can reduce the need for manual work, freeing up team members across different areas of the business so they can focus on more important things, like business growth and development. In turn, this also cuts back on labour costs, freeing up budget to be spent elsewhere.

Less manual labour = lower labour costs

It might not seem like a direct benefit for you, but integrating can improve your customers’ user experience when they’re browsing your website, portal, or app. We can dovetail various smaller integrations into your wider infrastructure, like ElasticSearch, which can help to bring users the data they’re searching for quicker. In doing so, your users are able to access information and products quicker, meaning there’s less time spent supporting customers behind the scenes.<a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">We’ve done it for clients like </a><a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">Harwin</a>, and they’ve seen some outstanding results. For example, thanks to the ElasticSearch database with Salesforce, we’re able to return filtered results of their 7,000+ products almost instantly.

Speedier user experiences

With so many SaaS systems available, it’s highly likely your business has the same data in multiple places. When this data needs updating, it has to be done manually, which often leads to mistakes that cost time and money.Integrating your SaaS systems helps to centralise all your data into one place, like Salesforce. So if there are updates, you only need to make the change once. This then synchronises across all the various different places the data is used, like your website. By only updating the data once, you massively reduce the risk of human error. It also means you know the data is always consistent and up-to-date across the board, so there shouldn’t be any discrepancies in data across different platforms.

Reduce costly errors

Did you know that <a href="https://zylo.com/blog/reducing-saas-license-waste/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">over 50% of SaaS licences go unused</a> because of duplicated functionality? This costs businesses on average about £15m+ each year. A lot of SaaS systems provide similar tools and services, and with disjointed SaaS systems, you’re more than likely duplicating functionality, so you’ll essentially be paying twice (or more) for services that do the same thing. For example, both Salesforce and Sage CRM offer marketing automations and sales forecasting. But because they’re not talking to one another, you could be stuck using both systems.Integrating your SaaS systems means you’ll no longer need to juggle multiple platforms because you can consolidate some of them into one, which then reduces your software costs.There are more benefits here too. Beyond cost savings, you’ll also be cutting back on the risk of data entry errors and streamlining the tools your team needs to use to do their jobs.

Fewer software licences

When it comes to business decision making, time can be a key factor in ensuring the decision is relevant and effective. Sometimes, these decisions are based on data, so accessing up-to-date data quickly and efficiently can be make or break when it comes to decision making.With a fully integrated SaaS system, you’ll be able to access real-time data as it’s shared between each system, giving you the data insights you need—fast. This results in quicker, smarter decision-making, and fewer costly misjudgements.

Faster decision making

Many CRM SaaS systems like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Monday.com can play a key role in your customers’ experience when dealing with your business, even if you think they don’t realise it.Disjointed SaaS systems often lead to an equally disjointed customer experience. Integrating your SaaS enterprise systems can help to improve this by streamlining support and communications, and simplifying and speeding up invoicing. Your customers will undoubtedly see the benefits, helping to retain your customers and reduce churn.

Better customer retention

While the upfront cost of integrating your SaaS enterprise systems might seem daunting, it pays for itself in benefits by boosting efficiency, reducing human error, and optimising resources. And all of this gives you and your team back the time to focus on growing the business and building on relationships with your existing customers and clients.At Si digital, when we integrate your SaaS systems, we use our <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday™ framework</a> to define tangible goals and KPIs that align with your business to help you maximise efficiency and effectiveness across the board.If you want to up your integration game, <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">check out our services</a> to see how we can help. Or <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a> if you’re ready to start a conversation.

The bottom line

How integrating your SaaS systems can save you time and money

Lead Backend Developer

Richard Keen

A SaaS integration is the process of taking a business’s SaaS enterprise systems and connecting them together to allow for seamless data exchange between each service and various different endpoints, like your website.

What is a SaaS integration?

With nearly <a href="https://ascendixtech.com/number-saas-companies-statistics/#:~:text=In%202024%2C%20there%20are%20currently,Number%20of%20SaaS%20unicorns" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">31,000 SaaS companies</a> offering their products to businesses, it can be difficult to know what services can be connected together or with your website, portal, or app. Here are a few examples of the different types of systems that can be integrated:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM) – Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and HubSpot</li><li value=2>Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) – e.g. Oracle, Infor and Workday</li><li value=3>Digital Asset Management systems (DAM) – e.g. Bynder and Canto</li><li value=4>Accounting systems – e.g. Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho and Sage</li><li value=5>Content Management systems (CMS) – e.g. Payload, Magento and Shopify</li><li value=6>Project Management systems – e.g. Asana, Jira and Trello</li><li value=7>Human Resource (HR) systems – e.g. Workday, Zoho People, SAP and BambooHR</li><li value=8>Payment Gateways – e.g. PayPal, Stripe and Adyen</li></ul>

What types of SaaS systems can I integrate? 

Your SaaS systems can integrate with one another to allow for smooth data transfer, but they can also integrate with digital products like your website, a customer portal, or an app. For example, you could integrate your DAM system to populate your website with product images, or you could integrate your CRM to capture lead data from your app.

What can I integrate my SaaS systems with? 

With a comprehensive SaaS integration, you can:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Automate workflows to save on admin time</li><li value=2>Sync data in real-time so you know data is up-to-date across the board</li><li value=3>Unify disparate SaaS tools for cross-platform communication</li><li value=4>Customise the integration to work with your business processes</li><li value=5>Create a scalable solution that grows as your business does</li></ul>All of these can be huge time and cost savers for your business.

What are the capabilities of SaaS integration?

Yes, you can integrate multiple SaaS systems with one another, as well as your app, portal, or website. We did exactly this for Harwin, where we connected their Salesforce system with their website, as well as their DAM and various other SaaS systems for seamless data exchange. By connecting multiple services, they felt the benefits even more, improving their workflows internally.

Can I integrate multiple SaaS systems?

Advanced integrations are generally very secure. We use our own Si Middleware, which features a private API, so it’s safe from prying eyes. Using secure authentication and data encryption also keeps data safe and secure.

Is integrating my SaaS systems secure?

To ensure a smooth integration, it’s worth defining clear goals and KPIs before you begin. When you integrate with us, we’ll run a workshop during the <a href="http://sidigital.co/services/discover">discovery phase</a> with you to determine what these are so everyone knows what we’re working towards. It’s also important to fully test an integration before it gets deployed. This ensures the data flows are working properly, reducing the risk of mismatching data entries or out-of-date data.

How do I ensure a smooth integration? 

The benefits of integrating your SaaS systems can be huge and have lasting effects on the way a business works and how efficient it is. Some of the top benefits our clients find are:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Less admin – there’s less time spent updating multiple data points. Simply update in one place, and the changes are reflected everywhere</li><li value=2>Reduce errors – with fewer places to update data, you minimise the chances of human error when entering data significantly</li><li value=3>Improved security – encryption and authentication reduce the risk of spam and data leaks, keeping your business’s data safe and secure</li><li value=4>Scalability – no need for a rebuild in three years’ time, our advanced integrations are fully scalable, so more SaaS systems can be added as your business expands</li><li value=5>Automation – data can be synced automatically, so you won’t have to worry about data updates being missed</li><li value=6>Always up-to-date – ongoing maintenance means your integration is always running smoothly, so less time spent fixing issues</li></ul>

What are the benefits of integrating?

If you’ve got any questions we’ve not answered, let us know in the comments. And if your business uses disjointed SaaS systems, <a href="http://sidigital.co/services/integrate">check out our integrations services</a> or <a href="http://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a> to book a consultation.

SaaS integrations: FAQs and everything you need to know

It’s estimated that around 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women have some form of colour blindness. In the UK, this means that there are approximately 2.7 million people affected, a considerable amount of the population, but they are often forgotten when it comes to designing websites and user interfaces.Here at Si digital we consider user experience and accessibility throughout every project. We use a variety of tools and techniques to help us understand visual impairments and use this knowledge to make our websites more usable and less frustrating for people who are colour blind.

Who is affected?

There are many types of colour blindness with different degrees of severity. It’s a common myth that people with colour blindness only see in black and white. Although this can be true, monochromacy – also known as total colour blindness – is extremely rare, with an estimated 1 in 33,000 people affected. This severe visual impairment only allows an individual to see in greyscale.An important factor to remember is that for most people with colour blindness, distinguishing between different colours is not too difficult; it’s telling the difference between shades and brightness levels of similar colours which causes issues.The more common condition is red-green colour blindness, which is split into two groups. A person with protanomaly has reduced sensitivity to red light. Red, orange, and yellow hues tend to shift towards green and appear less saturated. A person with deuteranomaly has reduced sensitivity to green light and will have difficulty distinguishing between blue, yellow, violet, reds, blues, and greens.

What is colour blindness?

For a long time, the difficulties that arise from colour blindness have been ignored, not only in website design, but also television, movies, and especially video games. There are many cases of users not being able to play a game or being unable to progress because of essential UI elements being indistinguishable to somebody who suffers from colour blindness.Take this example from The Witcher 3...

Colour in the wild

See how the red markers on the floor become near invisible when switching to red-green colour blindness.The game features an ability to use heightened senses to follow scents, track footprints, and find clues. However, the game developers chose a deep red colour as a marker, so there have been many users complaining that they couldn’t see these markers very well (or at all). A simple colour change or the option to change colours would have made this game more accessible.Colour blindness is a matter which needs to be taken seriously due to the high percentage of the population with vision impairments. If your website or application is particularly unoptimised, you could be losing a large amount of customers. For example, if a user can’t differentiate between a series of icons because of clashing colours and lack of contrast, that user could get frustrated and find an alternate service. If that is the experience of every potential customer who suffered from colour blindness, you’re losing over 8% of potential sales – for a business with £10,000,000 in revenue, that company could potentially lose a huge £800,000 in sales.

Although colour blindness can cause huge problems for users, it’s actually quite simple to combat. If you’re aware of the issues, then you’re already halfway there.<h3>1. Use contrasting colours</h3>Even people who have monochromacy still have a sense of contrast – the scaled difference between light and dark. To ensure your website is readable for people with visual impairments, you must make sure your content contrasts well with your background. For example, black text on a white background will have a high level of contrast and readability. Whereas yellow text on a white background has a low level of contrast and will be barely readable, even for people with full vision!

Designing with colour blindness in mind

<h3>2. Use different shades rather than multiple colours</h3>A monochromatic colour scheme — not to be confused with full colour blindness, monochromacy – makes use of multiple shades of one colour, rather than using various different colours. This will effectively minimise colour-related frustration, and is a great way to include contrast in your designs. A monochromatic colour scheme doesn’t have to be black and white; using multiple shades of blue, we can create a visually pleasing design with complete readability.

<h3>3. Experience colour blindness yourself while designing</h3><h4>Colour blindness simulation in Adobe Photoshop</h4>There are many free tools available that can mimic the effects of colour blindness, allowing you to understand how a colour blind person would see to ensure that your user interfaces work just as you intended them to. Photoshop has its own — slightly hidden away — proof setup feature; simply go to View > Proof Setup, and then you can choose between protanopia and deuteranopia. When you’re done testing, simply switch back to monitor RGB.<h4>Colour blindness simulation in Figma</h4>Unfortunately, there is no native support for Figma colour testing; however, there are various plugins that allow you to do the exact same thing. We recommend <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1115550442410459794/color-blind" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Color Blind</a>, a free plugin that shows you in real time what people with common colour vision impairments will see.<h4>Colour blindness simulation in Browser</h4>We use a Google Chrome add-on called <a href="https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/colorblindly/floniaahmccleoclneebhhmnjgdfijgg?pli=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Colorblindly</a> that lets you simulate colour blindness on live websites or in a testing environment. This is a handy tool for colour and contrast testing as it offers multiple viewing modes, including full monochromacy.

<h3>4. Choose colour combinations carefully</h3>Unfortunately, as designers, we don’t always get to choose the colours that we use in our designs; sometimes, we’re limited by brand guidelines. But where possible, it’s wise to choose and test your primary and secondary colours before you establish a brand. Below is a chart of colour combinations that you should avoid using.If in doubt, avoid colour altogether and go for a simple black/white, high-contrast colour scheme!

<h3>5. Use texture in place of colour</h3>When designing things like graphs and infographics, consider making use of texture or visual patterns to help differentiate between two colours. For example, take the pie chart below. A user with protanopia would find it hard to differentiate between the different slices due to the colours being too similar. However, if we simply add some texture or patterns, the graph is 100% more readable.

<h3>6. Avoid using colour alone as an indicator</h3>When designing elements like forms and complicated interfaces, you shouldn’t use colour alone as an indicator. Take the forms below as an example. The one on the left only uses colour as an indicator that something went wrong. A person with normal vision will be able to see that the email field has turned red, indicating there has been some kind of error. However, to a person with deuteranomaly, the green of the success field is indistinguishable from the red of the error field. The best way to combat this issue is to use some kind of icon, symbol, or label to indicate that an error has occurred, as seen on the right.

The most important lesson to learn here is that unless you’re absolutely certain that somebody with colour blindness can differentiate between the colours you have chosen, then you should never use colour alone to indicate something important. Where possible, use icons, text, shapes, textures, or other visual cues as well as colour when communicating information to users.There are many ways to test for accessibility; however, these tools aren’t always fully accurate – ultimately, the best way to see if your design is suitable is to perform real UX audits. It’s likely that you know somebody who is colour blind; why not get them to review your design?What we see as designers and developers isn’t always what your users see; they could be colour blind, using a screen reader, or looking at your website on a 3″ smartphone from 2007. Creating websites that are accessible to everyone is essential and should be part of any good design process.If you would like to speak to us about your new project and how we ensure we always deliver the ultimate, accessible user experience, please <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a>.

Lab Notes