Dutch Episerver meetup

CRM/CMS integrations are key to modern CX. At the meetup, we showed how Episerver and Dynamics 365 are the perfect partners.

Last week I was invited to present at Epidemic, the Dutch Episerver Developers Meetup. Hosted by Marvelous, our partners in the Netherlands, it was impeccably organised and well-attended. Kudos to Jeroen and the team!

My colleague David and I presented a talk called “Takes Two to Tango”, arguing that modern CX must be personal, not merely personalised. We used a CX map to illustrate that CRM is involved in every post-conversion digital touchpoint. Therefore, CMS/CRM  integrations are key, with data exchanges running deep, wide and in real-time.

Takes two to tango - Integrating Episerver and Dynamics 365

Episerver and Dynamics 365 are excellent partners for this elaborate choreography. At the simplest level, a direct integration can be facilitated using custom code, or the Episerver Dynamics Connector. Going one step further, developers can use caching (e.g. using Azure Redis) for a mediated integration.   

But if scalability is a must, then a decoupled architecture works best. Use Azure Service Bus, an elastic Cloud messaging service, to build solutions that support fast-moving data, multiple system connections or real-time CRM/CMS communication.

The Service Bus is a great addition to our toolkit. Commerce, customer portals and personalisation are just some uses for this heavy-duty (but surprisingly cost-effective) solution. To deliver the truly personal experiences your customers demand, we need clever new tools.