AI & Automation
AI Integration Services
Where your data already lives.
AI integration means connecting AI tools to the systems that hold your real information, your accounting package, CRM, ERP, ticketing or field-service software, usually through an API, the documented interface a system publishes so other software can read and write its data. happier IT builds and maintains those connections for Canadian organizations of roughly 15 to 200 people.
Who it's for
Almost every disappointing AI project is an integration problem.
The tool works. It simply cannot see the thing you needed it to see, and no licence tier fixes that.
Copilot cannot answer because the answer is not in Microsoft 365. It is in your job-costing system, your practice management software, or a database somebody built in 2011. Microsoft 365 Copilot grounds on Microsoft 365 content; anything outside it needs a connector or a build.
Two systems both hold the truth and they disagree. A customer is active in one and dormant in another. Until they agree, any AI answer drawing on them is a coin toss delivered confidently.
Somebody is the integration. A person exports a report, reformats it, and imports it somewhere else every week. That is an API call that has not been written yet.
A vendor said "we have an API" and that was the end of the conversation. Having one and it being usable for your case are different facts. Rate limits, missing fields, no webhooks and a licensing tier that gates access are all normal, and all discoverable in an afternoon.
The cheap check before any of it
Before scoping an integration, we read the vendor’s API documentation and confirm four things: that the data you need is exposed, that your licence tier includes access, what the rate limits are, and whether it can notify you of changes or must be polled.
It takes an afternoon and it has saved several clients from a project that could not have worked.
What's included
What an integration actually involves.
Connecting two systems is the visible tenth. The rest is deciding what happens when they disagree, and what happens when one is down.
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An API review before anything is promised
API means application programming interface, the documented way one system lets another read or change its data. We confirm the fields you need are exposed, that your licence tier includes access, and what the rate limits are, before a scope is written.
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Microsoft Graph connectors, where they fit
Microsoft publishes a way to bring outside content into Microsoft 365 search and Copilot grounding. Where a connector already exists for a system you run, it is nearly always cheaper than building. We check that first.
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A decided system of record
For every shared field, customer name, status, address, price, one system is authoritative and the others follow. This is a business decision, not a technical one, and skipping it is the reason integrations produce arguments instead of answers.
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Identity and permissions carried across
A user should see through an integration exactly what they may see in the source system, and no more. Where a connection runs under a service account, its permissions are scoped narrowly and reviewed, because a service account is the easiest way to accidentally publish everything to everyone.
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Sync design that survives an outage
Event-driven where the system supports webhooks, scheduled where it does not, with retries, a queue that holds work while the far end is unavailable, and a rule about what is never retried automatically. Systems go down; integrations should degrade rather than lose data.
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Reconciliation you can see
A daily or weekly comparison that reports only the differences. An integration that fails silently is worse than no integration, because people trust it.
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Field mapping and transformation, written down
How a status in one system maps to a status in another, what happens to a field that only exists on one side, and how dates, currencies and units are normalised. Written in a document rather than living in one developer’s head.
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Ongoing maintenance when vendors change things
APIs are versioned and deprecated on the vendor’s schedule, not yours. Monitoring for deprecation notices and doing the update before a workflow stops is part of running an integration rather than an unpleasant surprise.
How it works
Check the interfaces, agree the truth, then build.
Two of these three steps happen before any code exists, and they are the ones that decide whether it works.
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Read the documentation and test the endpoints
A short piece of work confirming the fields exist, the licence tier allows access, and the rate limits suit the volume. Sometimes this ends the project cheaply and early, which is a good outcome rather than a failed one.
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Agree which system is right about what
A short session with the people who use both systems, deciding the authoritative source for each shared field and what happens on a conflict. This is the step that turns an integration into something people trust.
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Build, reconcile, monitor
Built against the agreed mapping, run alongside the manual process for a fortnight, with a reconciliation report and monitoring on both ends. Then documentation, an owner, and a note of which API versions it depends on.
What it costs
Priced per connection, after the interfaces are checked.
Nobody can quote an integration honestly before reading the vendor’s documentation. So that part is sold as its own small piece of work.
The interface review It ends with a written yes, no, or yes-with-these-limits.
The build Two systems with good documentation and webhooks is a small job. A system with a partial API, no notifications and a monthly export is not.
Middleware licensing, where a platform is used rather than custom code, is separate and usually modest. Zapier bills in tasks, n8n can be self-hosted, and much of Power Automate is already inside your Microsoft 365 plans.
Maintenance, watching for API deprecations and doing the update before something breaks, sits inside managed IT
The integration that should not be built
If two systems overlap by 80%, the right answer is sometimes to retire one rather than integrate them. That is a harder conversation and a smaller invoice, and it is occasionally the correct advice.
We will raise it. Whether it is worth the disruption is your call, not ours.
Why us for this
Integration is the least glamorous work here and the highest value.
An organization that has cleanly connected its systems gets value from almost any AI tool it later chooses. An organization that has not will be disappointed by all of them, and will conclude the technology does not work when the actual problem is that the data was never reachable.
The integrations that fail after launch fail for two reasons, both preventable. Nobody decided which system was right, so the two drifted and people stopped trusting either. Or a vendor deprecated an API version, nothing was monitoring for it, and a silent workflow stopped on a Tuesday and was noticed on a Friday.
Integrations we have built include connections into software APIs that pull real-time information from several locations into one view.
Go deeper
- Business process automation What usually gets built on top.
- Custom AI development When the connection needs a build behind it.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment What Copilot can and cannot see.
Questions
What people ask before they sign anything.
What is an API integration?
An API, application programming interface, is the documented way one piece of software lets another read or change its data. An API integration is a connection built on that interface so two systems exchange information without a person exporting and importing. It is what removes the weekly copy-paste job, and it is the foundation under almost every useful AI tool, because a model can only work with data it can reach.
Can Microsoft 365 Copilot see data in our other systems?
Not by default. Microsoft 365 Copilot grounds its answers in Microsoft 365 content, your files, email, chats and calendar, plus what it retrieves through Microsoft Graph. Content in a separate line-of-business system is invisible to it unless you bring that content in, which Microsoft supports through Graph connectors. Where a ready-made connector exists for a system you already run, that is nearly always cheaper than building one. Where it does not, this is a build.
What if our software has no API?
There are three fallbacks, in descending order of how much we like them. A scheduled export and import, which is reliable but not live. A database-level connection, where the vendor permits it and it does not void support. Or replacing the system, which is a bigger conversation but is sometimes genuinely the right one. What we will not do is build screen-scraping automation against an interface the vendor can change without notice, because it breaks at the worst possible moment and costs more to maintain than it saved.
How long does an integration take?
For two systems with good documentation and webhooks, a few weeks including testing and a fortnight running in parallel. The variables are almost never the code. They are how long it takes to agree which system is authoritative for each shared field, and whether the vendor’s API exposes what you actually need. Both are discovered in the interface review, which is why we sell that as its own small step.
What does an AI integration cost?
Two parts. Budget for maintenance too. APIs get versioned and deprecated on the vendor’s schedule, and someone has to be watching.
Will an integration expose data to people who should not see it?
Only if permissions are not carried across, which is the main thing to get right. A user should see through an integration exactly what they may see in the source system and nothing more. The common mistake is running the connection under one service account with broad rights, which effectively publishes everything to everyone who can query it. We scope service accounts narrowly, review them, and check what an ordinary user can actually retrieve before anything goes live. See identity and access management.
What happens when a vendor changes their API?
Something stops, usually quietly, unless someone is watching for it. Vendors version and deprecate APIs on their own schedule and publish notice in advance, so the work is monitoring for those notices and doing the update before the deadline rather than after the failure. Where happier IT runs your managed IT, that monitoring is part of the service and each integration is documented with the API versions it depends on.
Related
Where to go next.
Want to know what this would look like for you?
A 30-minute call. No slides, no audit fee, no obligation. We ask what is breaking and tell you honestly whether we are the right fit.