How We Approach API Integrations

This article explains how Octacer engineers connect a client's systems, such as a CRM, an accounting tool, an ERP or a custom app, through their APIs and webhooks. Octacer does not sell an integration platform or an "Octacer API". We build integrations inside your accounts, on the engine that suits them: n8n, Make, Zapier or Power Automate, or custom code where no ready-made connector does the job.

Every integration starts as a sentence: "when X happens in system A, system B should end up with Y." Before any API call is written, we map:

• the trigger: a webhook, a schedule, a new row or a status change;
• the systems involved, and which one is the source of truth for each field;
• the business rules, including what should happen when data is missing;
• the awkward cases: duplicates, late updates, cancellations and records edited by hand.

API keys and OAuth connections are created in your accounts, not ours. We ask only for the access the integration needs and use OAuth where the vendor supports it. You can revoke access at any time, and credentials are never sent by email.

For each field we record the source, the destination, the data type, any transformation, whether it is required, and what happens when it is empty. Two rules prevent most silent damage:

APIs fail. What matters is what the integration does next.

• Temporary failures, such as rate limits (HTTP 429) and server errors (5xx), are retried with increasing waits.
• Data errors, such as a rejected field or a missing record (most 4xx responses), are not retried blindly. They go to a named person with the record and the error attached.
• Duplicates are prevented on purpose. Webhooks can arrive more than once and retries can repeat a write, so each write is checked against a key before it creates anything. Our article on idempotent printing shows the pattern in a real workflow.

On the Production tier of an Automation Sprint, retries, duplicate protection and a run log your team can read are included.

An HTTP 200 means a request was accepted. It does not mean the record exists where it should. Each integration should confirm its outcome: the record is in the target system, the file was delivered, the status changed. See integration bugs hide behind partial success signals.

Before go-live we run agreed test cases, including the awkward ones:

• a normal record that should pass end to end;
• a record with a required field missing;
• the same event delivered twice;
• an expired or revoked credential;
• the vendor rate-limiting the integration or timing out.

Every Automation Sprint includes failure alerts, so you hear about a failed run before a customer does. The handover covers how the integration works and how to change it, and it stays in your accounts.

• One integration or workflow to build: Automation Sprint, fixed price from $750.
• An integration that has stopped working: System Rescue, a $249 Quick Fix, or you don't pay.
• Ongoing integration work: an engineer through Engineering Capacity, from $1,900/month.