Have you ever used a software solution that did a good job on one side, but lacked functionality on other sides, or was missing the interoperability with other software in the organisation? Wouldn’t it be better if one great software product could exchange information with the other software product or make use of some of its functionality to make your everyday life easier?
For those situations pre-built integrations and an open Application Programming Interface (API) feature becomes handy.
Pre-built integrations require no coding capability from the user. They are already programmed and tested, and all the customer needs to do is to select the right one from the existing RingCentral app store, download and enable it. There are hundreds of integrations that are available to be used with the RingCentral Office or Contact Centre products. Those out-of-the-box integrations work with many popular business applications like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Desk, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, Netsuite, Oracle and more. They not only allow the user to continue the use of those already beloved and active business solutions, they also easily improve that usage and the customer experience through added functionality and simplified workflow.
What happens if you can’t find a pre-built app for the business solution you’re using in your organisation? No need to worry – we have an API available.
An API is an interface that provides developers with programmatic access to proprietary software or web service. The RingCentral API platform is publicly available, but not all APIs are. With the available API interface, developers can create their own application integration by using low- or full-coding. Both types of programming are available through the RingCentral developer platform. In the case of low-coding, there are many pre-programmed sections available to enable or use voice or video or other functionality of the RingCentral platform. This is almost like using a Lego-style type of programming, using a library of pre-programmed programme chunks to make the application integration available. In addition to the low-coding, developers can also go the way of full-coding and that means they can develop a business solution integration for a very specific or unique application.
Those are the three ways of integrating your existing business application with RingCentral functionality, which opens up a new world of opportunities: siloed software solutions from the past are now free to interact with one another and provide a new user experience. Additionally, it boosts the compatibility level even higher and your contact centre team will be able to get the best out of two (or more) worlds.
There will never be the one solution that does it all for one customer, as every customer has different requirements or is operating under different environmental conditions, so the pre-built integrations in combination with the available open API approach with low- and full-coding provides the ideal connection for current and future needs. This future-ready functionality is ever so important for a growing organisation. What’s great today could be a real burden tomorrow, but thanks to the growing list of integrations and the open API, your organisation can grow and adapt to new requirements as needed.
At RingCentral, we offer hundreds of ready-to-use integrations for the RingCentral Office and RingCentral Contact Centre products, making it easy to connect your existing applications with the new communication and collaboration tools from RingCentral.
My personal favourite prebuilt integration right now is the Office365 integration with the RingCentral app. I manage my communication and collaboration sessions through Outlook365 calendar, and they are integrated with my RingCentral app, from where I start all voice and video meetings, upload and share documents or share my screen with others. It also helps me find answers to my day-to-day questions quickly as we are creating competence teams inside and outside the organisation when we work on projects or create functional teams inside the organisation. Another significant benefit is that the volume of e-mails I receive went down drastically, and I feel better connected to the relevant teams.
Thanks to the open API the integration of existing solutions into new cloud-based communication and collaboration tools is really simplified. This makes our business life easier and our customers more satisfied as the organisation operates more efficiently, delivering better responses faster in a world where communication has become so important.
Visit our integrations listing to find out if RingCentral offers ready-to-use integrations for your current business application.
Originally published Dec 05, 2019, updated Jan 16, 2023
