Workato, the enterprise automation platform, and OutSystems, the low-code platform for developing apps, complement each other perfectly.
Workato’s very own VP of Enterprise Architecture, Dan Kennedy, explained why during his session at this year’s NextStep conference. Here’s a recap on what he shared!
Why Workato and OutSystems Work so Well Together
As you use OutSystems to build your apps, you’ll want to integrate them with the other platforms in your ecosystem as soon as possible.
Doing this, however, can easily become time-intensive and laborious, and it can ultimately fail to keep up with business demands. According to Forrester, “93% of firms struggle with a traditional integration strategy because it can’t keep up with digital business demands and complexity.”
This is where Workato fits in. Using Workato, Kennedy explained, you can integrate your OutSystems apps with others easily (no coding required) and quickly.
To help you get a sense of the value Workato and OutSystems deliver when used together, Kennedy walked through a few real-world use cases and a couple more general examples.
A Fortune 500 Company Modernizes a Legacy App’s User Experience
An enterprise company in the energy infrastructure industry had a legacy app that was delivering business-critical information to its field users, but it wasn’t easy to use.
To overcome this and prevent the company from replacing the legacy app (which could cost millions of dollars), they built a top-of-the-line mobile app using OutSystems, and integrated it with the legacy system (among others) via Workato’s pre-built connectors.
The result? Field users can still access and use data from the legacy app but do so through a modern, user-friendly interface.
Related: A guide to integrating legacy systems with your cloud apps
A Prominent Security Firm Fast-Tracks their SAP Integration
A well-known security company was initially struggling to integrate their OutSystems’ apps with SAP.
The process of building their SAP integrations was slow, and the task of managing each integration felt cumbersome and overly complex. Kennedy explained further:
“SAP had 4 or 5 different technologies that could be used to integrate, and all of these different connection points were causing a lot of overhead and slowing down the delivery process.”
The organization soon decided to change course by using Workato to connect their OutSystems apps with SAP. Once they did (using Workato’s pre-built connectors for OutSystems and SAP), they were able to eliminate the role that low-level technologies, like iDoc and RFC, played in the integration. This allowed them to focus more on business-critical areas, like how they want the data to flow between the systems, as well as standardize their connectivity.
Streamline Approvals in Your OutSystems Apps
In this more general use case, Kennedy pointed out that employees want to be able to make requests and approve/reject any from OutSystems by using a platform they already work on (i.e. Slack or Microsoft Teams).
To help them do just that, Kennedy said that you can use Workato’s OutSystems connector to access the data, and then use Workato’s Workbot to communicate between OutSystems and the chat platform.
This ultimately allows employees to extend the value of their OutSystems app capabilities as well as provide an experience that boosts employee productivity and satisfaction.
Share Data with Partners and Vendors in a Way that’s Secure and Flexible
In his final example, Kennedy explained that you can use Workato’s API Gateway to share data from OutSystems apps in a way that’s controlled and secure.
He went on to point out that Workato does this by allowing for things like rate limits, OAuth Authentication, IP Whitelisting, Audit Logs, etc. In his own words:
“Layering Workato as that Microservices architecture with all of your various OutSystems apps being sources for that data, in addition to any other apps in your ecosystem, really allows you the flexibility, control, and security to be able to expose that data both internally and externally.”
To learn more about how your organization can use Workato with your OutSystems apps, you can schedule some time to chat with one of our automation experts!
