About Janus Worldwide’s development of integration solutions with client systems

The modern world is constantly changing, and the rate of change seems to be accelerating. Some 150 years ago, people who live outside of cities would leisurely harness a horse to a carriage or wagon and go to the market for their purchases. It was an infrequent event, and people would long remember the details of their trip and what they bought, and they would plan how their next trip would go and what they would buy.

In today’s post-pandemic society, those who live on the outskirts of cities or outside of metropolitan areas often no longer have the time to take unnecessary journeys to the stores, and shopping is based on a principle of reasonable spending for the coming week.

With this ever-increasing pace of life come demands for process automation and system integration that were previously out of the question. For example, the integration of customer and contractor computer systems, the automation of internal company processes, and other tools not only simplify human activities, but also make it possible to deal with competition more confidently.

As a company on the global market, Janus Worldwide has of course faced these demands, particularly for the integration of Janus’s computer systems (ERP and TMS) with customer systems (TMS, CMS, and Web portal). As examples, of note are integrations with Across, memoQ, Welocalize Junction/Pantheon, RWS/Moravia, Lionbridge, Morningside, GlobalLink, and Odnoklassniki. It should be noted that this was our initiative in several cases. In this, we are keeping up with the latest requirements and trying to ease the routine work of our employees and automate production processes.

In R&D, the development of integration solutions with client systems began with the simplest customizations, such as importing projects from e-mail messages into Janus ERP. But as time went by, these integration solutions became ever more complex. Now, our solution is capable of delivering project information to customers as electronic reports via our own API, containing project details, totals, types, and statistics for translation services. Integration can be implemented in different ways: via REST API, SOAP with client CMS, TMS or CAT Tools for translation (see fig.), or using bots that execute or fetch data directly from a website if there are no other options for interacting with it.

These integrations allow us to quickly move data between different servers (both our own and those of our clients) without human intervention. This makes it possible to both synchronize information and fully automate the process of placing translation orders (see fig.). The client can place a new job in their CMS or on their own TMS server and then receive information about its fulfillment and cost in their own system, without using third-party sites and without e-mail correspondence.

Fig. Options for integration solutions

Technically, these integrations are two-way data transfer interactions via http and SOAP protocols. Modern high-level programming languages (C#, Ruby, 1C, Python, etc.) are used as the tools for these implementations in R&D, together with different libraries and frameworks that are too numerous to list here. Recently, the standard for interaction with various backend-components has been the presentation of data in the JSON and REST (Representational State Transfer) forms. Together with encryption and various types of authorization for working with APIs, this is the fastest, safest, easiest, and most reliable way of developing such solutions.

An important part of any integration is data parsing or conversion because data on different platforms and in different languages can appear differently. The implementation of these solutions in R&D is therefore very flexible. We try to execute them in such a way that the maximum amount of information is transferred between different systems without loss or unnecessary actions, and so that it is understandable and convenient for end users.

In cases where, for example, the web portal on the customer side does not have the capability of working with API, we implement automated data retrieval with scripts that can safely be called bots. They not only perform dull, routine work, but also notify interested parties at various stages by e-mail, messenger, or in web report form.

From a technical point of view, these bots imitate human activity directly on the website, independently pressing buttons and receiving or entering various information. The same programming languages, plus specialized libraries, are used as tools to create these integrations and automations. Selenium Web Driver has been the most popular at R&D. Originally, it was more of an automated testing tool, but it has proven to be excellent at creating web bots. We have also had experience using Sikuli as a tool for working outside the web interface. Nokogiri can be used in cases where no active interaction or simulated user action is required.

Bots that routinely accept and transfer orders to our ERP, or notify interested parties of any changes to the site, have proven to be a great automation for Janus Worldwide’s internal use for working on third-party portals. This includes both the receipt of orders and changes of statuses or comments. This ensures everything is always up to date, especially when such notifications are not provided by the external portal or do not work correctly.

It is worth noting that similar tools are also used by competitors, but our experience and constant development in R&D allow us to find solutions that let us cope well with the challenges at hand and still accept auction orders faster than others who wish to do so.

To summarize, the R&D department is ready to implement various automated integration options. There is considerable experience in this, and we welcome requests from the heads of the production and sales departments for integration and the automation of work.

We’re prepared!