A very common scenario in many companies involves the need to get data that resides in one web application into another one. Unfortunately, IT backlogs are generally so long, that users resort to an approach which requires a person to sit in front of Application “A” and cut-and-paste the desired data into Application “B”. This practice is known as swivel chair automation and is a lot more common than most people realize. This is not a very cost effective solution and it’s inherently error prone and non-repeatable, but it is often the only solution available to get the job done.

The Data Collection Edition of the Kapow Mashup Server provides a better alternative. Since we can connect to and extract data from any website and make that data available to a developer as a data object that is understood by just about any Java or .NET tool, it’s simple to automate a data flow between two web applications. Because this process is executed by a robot, it can be easily automated and is highly repeatable with none of the errors that occur when a human does the task manually. The cost savings, scale, and ease of integration with this approach are obvious and compelling. This is one of the most common use cases for this product today.