Architecture

The Connector architecture is web-services based, and is built by leveraging CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete) based web services at the CampusNexus CRM and Anthology Student end points.

Connector consists of integration adapters that interact with web services to provide the connection and transformation layer between the two systems.

Architectural Sub-Components

Along with the two systems that are to be connected and their data integrated, the key architectural sub-components that enable the integration are:

• The CampusNexus CRM system

• CampusNexus CRM APIs, collectively termed iServices

• The Connector components

  • Connector Queue Manager

  • Connector Service Manager

• Anthology Student APIs, collectively termed CampusLink API

• The Anthology Student system (SIS)

CampusNexus CRM and Anthology Student integrate their operational and reference data through message passing using system-specific APIs. CampusNexus CRM APIs are collectively termed as iServices and Anthology Student APIs are collectively termed as CampusLink API.

At its core, Connector comprises:

• The Connector Service Manager – the underlying infrastructure which implements various modules within a Windows Service to perform transactional sub-tasks that achieve the integration between the two systems.

• The Connector Queue Manager – a web-based application that offers an administrative console for managing transactional messages between the two systems.

Integration adapters of Connector intercept these transactional messages. The mapping of the integration of data properties between the two systems is stored in editable XML format within the Connector infrastructure.

Connector converts a source system's (either CRM or SIS) data structure into a generic structure, before finally converting it to the target system’s data structure. As a result, Connector achieves near real-time two-way data integration between the two systems.

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