Bi-directional integrations/sync

[Oshyan]

It feels like this is a request that ought to already exist here, and I’m sure it has been discussed in other threads at the least. But I couldn’t find a dedicated topic for it, so here we are (possibly I’m just using the wrong search terms ).

In short, with the already powerful Fibery capability to “mirror” the data models of other apps, and the coming automations functions, I am really hoping that these integrations can become bi-directional some day soon, i.e. adding “write” capability to make changes in external systems. So for example if a Bug Report linked to a Forum Topic in Discourse is marked Solved/Complete in Fibery, it can automatically post a Reply to Discourse in that Topic with e.g. the last Comment on the closed Entity from Fibery, and select that post as the Solution (“Solved” plugin), then Close the topic. Or update a Github issue from Fibery, etc.

This kind of capability would make Fibery a true central hub from which you could do almost anything, manage almost any process, and have to leave the system much less. I’m sure you have it in mind, and like I said I know it has been touched on in other topics. I’m also imagining it will be complex to implement, and probably involve some custom handling of many of the integrations (e.g. what makes sense as a write function in the context of one integration vs. another). But I would love to have some more direct understanding of where such capability might lie in the team’s plans and how you envision them working.

[colman]

I fully support this. I’m very excited for this, and just like @Oshyan would love to get a sense of the plans and roadmap here.

[Oshyan]

To clarify, I think I am somewhat asking about two different things here, maybe. One would simply be bi-directional editing of integrated data, so if I click e.g. “Closed” checkbox in Fibery on a Discourse Topic, it will close that topic in Discourse itself. This kind of thing may not be as feasible for some data of integrated apps, e.g. Intercom conversations or Discourse Replies, as they are currently integrated (just additions to the Rich Text field). But maybe with a more sophisticated future integration?

The other feature, which would work with the more basic bi-directional data manipulation, would be automations, which we already know are coming. So it would, I think, be an automation that handles the “if a bug report linked to a forum topic is marked complete”… part of my original description.

[Oleg]

Hi, @Oshyan

Thanks for feedback and questions. Our team are working on automations and integrations. As you know we have added some integrations, but unfortunately Discource are not among them. Anyway for now it is just one-way integration and bi-directional data sync will be available only in future release as a part of automations. Not sure when we will add Discource app, but we will provide the possibility to add custom integrations and automations for our customers in nearest future. We will do our best to make the way of adding custom integration apps as simple as possible.

Could you please let me know will you be interested in adding your custom integrations and automations into Fibery? It will require some coding effort from your team side.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Oleg

[Oshyan]

Thank you for the response. I am a bit unclear on some of what you said, because Discourse is already supported as an integration in Fibery, but only one-way sync as is true I think for all Fibery integrations currently.

I can think of many specific use cases for bi-directional sync, or to put it another way “edit data in remote system”. Is it helpful if we all just add as many examples as we can think of?

[Oleg]

Hi, @Oshyan

Thanks for correcting me. You are right. We have Discource added and it’s one way sync.
We understand how important bi-directional data sync, but your examples will be very helpful for us to understand the scale of two way data sync. Please drop your cases if have some minute. Really appreciate your time.

Thanks,
Oleg

[B_Sp]

Want to add strong support for this. In fact, in my opinion a one-directional “integration” is a misnomer. Unless the integration works both ways, there’s a good chance you can replicate a one way sync with an API. So the “native” integration isn’t that helpful. Most good integrations I’ve used, like ClickUp/Front of Jira/Bitbucket, give you a good view of the respective integrated app inside the other app.

One example is to update a task in one app from “in progress” to “done,” and the equivalent task entity in the other updates as well. The Unito middleware does this well in some cases, like you can mirror comments between apps within Tasks, but lacks the polish of better “native” integrations where you can see more of the integrated app inside the other. Hubspot/Jira is another good example.

@Oleg

Please drop your cases if have some minute. Really appreciate your time.

Examples I’d like to see:

• Full integration with Version Control Systems (Gitlab, Bitbucket, Github) - automatic pull request updating entity in Fibery; merges going across both systems, etc. etc. Clubhouse.io, Linear, and of course Jira are all doing this very well

• GSuite marketplace Email integration. All top-tier apps (Smarsheet, Atlassian, Asana, Wrike, etc.) have this. You can create a task out of the Gmail App on your phone even

• Tight integration with payments/time tracking app, like hub staff. So you can track and pay contractors, a big deal in this remote era

• Calendar - huge. You should be able to send an entity to a Gcal and have a Google Meet link auto populate back to the Entity - key if you are running Meeting Notes in Fibery, which is a big thing I think a lot of teams will do because it’s one of the best uses of Fibery. The calendar item should update back in Fibery if linked if you change it directly in Google Calendar, and vice versa.

Really hoping to see some of this stuff shortly!

[Oshyan]

@B_Sp

Most good integrations I’ve used, like ClickUp/Front of Jira/Bitbucket, give you a good view of the respective integrated app inside the other app.

@B_Sp

One example is to update a task in one app from “in progress” to “done,” and the equivalent task entity in the other updates as well. The Unito middleware does this well in some cases, like you can mirror comments between apps within Tasks, but lacks the polish of better “native” integrations where you can see more of the integrated app inside the other. Hubspot/Jira is another good example.

I agree with all this. I just want to highlight that these are two distinctly different (though related) things, and I’d be happy with the simpler of the two (change data in either app and it reflects in the other, but no integrated UI elements). In the long-term the more deep integration would be very nice to have, e.g. an “add task to Fibery” button in Gmail like ClickUp has. But for now I mostly just want to be able to change something in Fibery and have it reflected in the remote system so I can spend more of my time in one system. That’s my real goal, personally.

@B_Sp

• Full integration with Version Control Systems (Gitlab, Bitbucket, Github) - automatic pull request updating entity in Fibery; merges going across both systems, etc. etc. Clubhouse.io, Linear, and of course Jira are all doing this very well

Yeah, this is a great example that I’d like to see too.

@B_Sp

• GSuite marketplace Email integration. All top-tier apps (Smarsheet, Atlassian, Asana, Wrike, etc.) have this. You can create a task out of the Gmail App on your phone even

Also would be great, though this falls more into the second category of what I consider “deeper”/more sophisticated integration, I think.

@B_Sp

• Calendar - huge. You should be able to send an entity to a Gcal and have a Google Meet link auto populate back to the Entity - key if you are running Meeting Notes in Fibery, which is a big thing I think a lot of teams will do because it’s one of the best uses of Fibery. The calendar item should update back in Fibery if linked if you change it directly in Google Calendar, and vice versa.

Interesting specifics here that I didn’t think of. But definitely agree that GCal is a critical integration and should be bi-directional.

[Mike]

I support integrations and use-cases mentioned in this post.

My personal interest is in GitLab integration, with bi-directional integration of issues, epic and labels. As a product leader, I’d like to be able to manage everything from Fibery without having to open GitLab for product management.

I other words, Based on my objectives and collected feedback, I would like to create the Features and related user stories in Fibery. Then organize the work to be done for the dev team in Epics, merge requests and milestones to be sync with the appropriate labels in GitLab.

This would allow me to centralize all the work into Fibery and ensure that I can then link insights, ideas, objectives, KPI all at 1 location.

Hoping to see this integration soon.

[mdubakov]

One possible solution is to bring development team into Fibery

[Oshyan]

Yes, however there is still value in being able to affect target systems in integrations with changes in Fibery.

[oooooreona]

Hello Fibery users.

I am also strongly hoping for this feature.

Since this is a reply for an old topic and my reply grew too long, I hide it below.

long text

I recently saw a discussion here about API outsourcing (I assume he means integration), and I decided to do some personal development on the Todoist integration function that I use on a regular basis, just to try it out.

However, I found out during the planning stage that bi-directional synchronization was not possible and decided to halt development.

This is going to be a bit of a long explanation of why we wanted to develop an integration feature, but I will explain.

First of all, I understand that the Todoist model can be fully reproduced on Fibery.
However, I still use Todoist for the following reasons

• There is a mobile app
• Notifications for due dates
• (Easy) creation of recurring tasks
• It has fewer features than Fibery, but it is sufficient for managing my daily shopping list and tasks.
• (Karma, a fun gamification of task completion)
• (I look forward to the rich html year in review once a year)

In addition to the above points, one of the reasons is that I have been using it for a while.
There is no reason that is so significant.

However, if bi-directional synchronous integration can be developed, the option of using both apps in parallel will appear.

I will explain in more detail below.

Fibery has a really great blog, and I believe you have a thriving community of users who are enthusiastic and sympathetic to the philosophy of you.
I believe that Fibery users arrived at Fibery as a result of their continuous search for better software.

I think there is a psychological resistance for people who keep trying new software to switch to a completely new software.
This is because they may decide after some time that the previous software is better suited to them, and they think that they may lose or fragment the knowledge they have accumulated so far when they switch back to the previous software.
I have experienced this on several occasions.

However, I believe that simply for that reason alone, there are some users who would be happier if they switched completely to Fibery, but who have decided to continue using the software they have been using.

I would like to use the application Sunsama as an example of software that successfully achieves integration capabilities.
My interpretation of Sunsama is that it is a Hub-like application that takes tasks managed by various applications and filters them through a “task to do today” filter.
Sunsama offers integration with Todoist, Clickup, Trello, Notion, Jira, GitHub, Google Calendar, Gmail, Outlook, Slack, and some more.
Sunsama is a relatively expensive application at about $20/month, but I used it for about two years because I shared its straightforward development philosophy.

Sunsama’s integration feature creates a copy of a task from an external application such as Todoist.
Copied tasks are managed on the Sunsama side, and changes to task names or additions of notes are not reflected on the Todoist side.
However, if you change the status of a task to completed, it will also be completed on the Todoist side.
In the case of Trello, another option appears regarding synchronization. (see image below)

Sunsama - The daily planner for busy professionals

Recently Todoist added a weekly board view and I cancelled my Sunsama subscription because I was managing only Todoist tasks with it.
I could have easily made that decision because canceling Sunsama would still have no effect on my tasks on the Todoist side.

As an aside, I want to visualize all of my productivity in Todoist, so I have developed and use a program that uses Fibery’s API to automatically add tasks completed in Fibery to Todoist.

I have written at length so far, but I will conclude.

I understand that one of the selling points of Fibery is to “manage various information managed by various applications with one software”.
If it becomes possible to develop a bi-directional synchronization integration feature, I believe we can offer an implicit trial or transition period for existing users of the application, which would be very important in attracting new users.
Because it will be a period of time where they will learn that Fibery can do more.

And it may be a deep reading, but I suspect that the lively discussion in the article mentioned at the beginning of this article may have such a request hidden in the background.

As described in this blog post. I feel that I can create a bi-directional synchronous application itself even at this point by making full use of APIs, webhooks, Automation, and Actions, but I would like to avoid this because of the extra work involved.

At any rate, I think that development resources are limited and that your team is currently focusing on product companies, so I don’t expect that they will be able to respond immediately, but I would appreciate it if you could refer to this as the opinion of one user.

I’m really looking forward to Fibery’s future!

[Oshyan]

Well said (all of it at length )! Fibery is focused on Product Teams because this has so far been their highest traction/retention market segment. And yet their adoption is still far below many competitors, some of which came along well after Fibery’s debut (e.g. Linear). So they may be right to focus on product teams, but I have I have some doubts it will lead them to huge long-term success, at least on its own. I think they need a “wedge”, and to consider the utility of that wedge in multiple markets, and what you describe is exactly that: a way to get people into Fibery and using it progressively more and more until perhaps/hopefully (probably?) they move all-in on it. While developing such a feature may be a very large development effort, it would positively impact on a wide range of potential customer segments, including their current Product teams focus (although admittedly perhaps to a lesser extent than some others).

[ESGdataBoi]

Funny timing of this post as I am just now beginning to use Todoist and Sunsama in tandem. I did also just implement the google calendar sync in Fibery, too, so I can see the end result of all my planning in Fibery to better aid in planning Fibery-derived tasks/milestones. But if I could have 1-way sync with even just Todoist, it would be HUGE. For non-product development folks such as myself, Fibery can be more of the “macro manager” for stuff and then the other platforms (sunsama, Todoist, etc) as more of the “micro manager” platforms. Would be nice to be able to sync those up to some extent, but I get why it may not be an immediate priority.

[Oshyan]

I think “Fibery as a data hub and interconnection manager” or “meta-management system” is a strong, multi-market use case. Again I think it could help them get a wedge in their into otherwise entrenched and highly competitive markets, like for example Product Companies. (but also support, agencies, PKM, quantified self, and much more).

[mdubakov]

@Oshyan

I think “Fibery as a data hub and interconnection manager” or “meta-management system” is a strong, multi-market use case.

Let’s say we go for it, how you will differentiate from Notion, for example? What you will write on a home page to explain the benefits?

[mdubakov]

BTW, we are working on 2-ways Jira sync now and I hope we will release it in the next few weeks.
Most likely it will make other 2-ways integration cases easier.

2-way sync can be challenging, it depends on requirements. For example, if you need to sync only Name and Status fields, it is easy to do. But if you want to sync text, comments threads, etc, it is becoming very complex.

[Oshyan]

@mdubakov

Let’s say we go for it, how you will differentiate from Notion, for example? What you will write on a home page to explain the benefits?

Definitely a great question! I’m done with my prior consulting job now, so I’m happy to work with you guys to figure this out. (note I am not a marketing/sales person, so not my area of expertise, but I’ll try! )

@mdubakov

2-way sync can be challenging, it depends on requirements. For example, if you need to sync only Name and Status fields, it is easy to do. But if you want to sync text, comments threads, etc, it is becoming very complex.

Sure, makes sense. “Requirements” vary. So I’d favor a phased roll-out, starting with what is easy, and showing a list of other types of content sorted by its difficulty to implement and potential timeline/intention to do so. Ideally this would be shown as a ? on all Synced DBs/entities, and/or even on non-editable fields to explain why. I think it would be non-ideal to hold off on any broad (supported in multiple integrations) bi-directional sync until/unless a lot of fields/data types can be implemented (i.e. not for a while because it’s hard). Do what you can now, it’s better than nothing and perhaps gives you more signal from users as to how much they like/appreciate it/want more, and maybe also gives you a start on the work to implement more (seems like this is already happening, at least).

[tpaktop]

Would it be possilble to OSS that integration to serve as “do as we do” tutorial ?
I feel current integrations guide lacks example of complex syncings code and jira integration will cover that perfeclty.
And if it’s 2 way you get to save time on writing a guide - just point people to that integration as example. At least in the beginning for many it would be sufficient.

[NMan]

Bidirectional sync would also be interesting for calendars.

Even if work happens in Fibery, meetings still needs to be scheduled in outlook (or gcal), and bidirectional sync would make timeblocking time for tasks easier.

Also, speaking of timeblocking, other improvements would be the possibility of adjusting duration of a timeblock by dragging the lower-end of the event in the calendar.
Also, the calendar view is missing a view of overdue entities.

Cheers

p.s. strong focus on bi-directional being available also for outlook, not only for gcal. This is one of the weaknesses of clickup: no bi-directional for outlook