Bi-directional integrations/sync

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.

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!

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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.

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

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

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

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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.

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One possible solution is to bring development team into Fibery :slight_smile:

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

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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!

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Well said (all of it at length :smile:)! 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).

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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.

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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. :sweat_smile: (but also support, agencies, PKM, quantified self, and much more).

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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?

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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.

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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. :wink: (note I am not a marketing/sales person, so not my area of expertise, but I’ll try! :joy:)

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).

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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.

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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

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Two-way sync with Jira is released yesterday.
We will add more two-way connectors based on feedback.

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When it comes to 2 way sync, is the goal to differentiate? Or do you primarily want to remove as many impeding objections as possible?

Overall, Fibery and Notion are quite similar. I think every Notion enthusiast can also fall in love with Fibery once everything is in place.

In my opinion Notion really wins based on integrations. But for me personally, Fibery wins based on:

  • support & open culture
  • ease of use
  • flexibility
  • automations (although I have never used the automations in Notion)
  • dashboards
  • vision and roadmap

Maybe we can create a more fact based overview based on the workspaces that have been build :slight_smile:

I am building a very comprehensive workspace in Fibery. It might be interesting to explore what the actual differences are between Notion and Fibery based on my use case when I’m finished.

As far as I know, I can’t build in Notion what I now have built in Fibery. But I can’t back that up with hard facts because I haven’t used Notion for complex stuff in the last 12 months.

I do know for sure that I can’t build it in ClickUp (but that’s not a surprise).

It depends on the requirements and on the use case. For calendars, PKM, CRM I think that a simple 2 way integration can be sufficient for a lot use case cases.

Because the goal is not to have ‘one tool to replace them all’.

But I do think that Fibery + 2 way sync integrations = the ultimate system from which you can manage 90% of your business.

And for details and missing info you can then always go to the source application.

Edit
After a quick scan; does Notion even have 2 way sync? For most applications not as far as I can see. So then that can be a USP.

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Trello, Notion and Clickup are likely the most relevant apps to make two-way sync as far as I hear people around me. But I think the bug about body text in clickup is still to be resolved first.

I think it is unlikely that there will be two-way-sync for these platforms any time soon. Fibery is trying to be a replacement for them, so there is less incentive to develop a two-way-sync that would imply that users keep Fibery and Trello (or F and N, F and CU etc.)

I think it’s more likely that the product team would focus on adding features to Fibery that would make it less and less likely that a user needs to also use T/N/CU.

If Fibery chose for a strategy that makes other apps obsolete, it will have to compete with the quality offered by those other apps.

Currently the integration of Notion, Clickup and Trello is syncing read only data. The actual editing of these apps data need to happen in clickup, notion or trello.

I think that the current trend in collaborative tools is to be connected to external tools in a meaningful way, so that each tool has their unique quality in itself and in a whole system of interconnected tools.

By the way, I would be very happy if Fibery can keep up with all most important features that those other apps offer, but am curious if Fibery aims at a similar kind of Clickup capital funding or as Notion. Has anyting about the future vision and strategy of Fibery has been posted somewhere?

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Any update for this, I’m stucking in using google calendar to navigate things
Currently I using Fibery as People Database includes interaction: meeting, appointments, personal information and using Google calendar as recurring and visual alls. I feel really annoy with just 1 way sync: Google calendar → Fibery only (Readonly in fibery) which means all the things can be controled in fibery as center, it must be done in from other app outside.
Example: I have daily meeting in google calendar, but the content/ the plan I need to do in fibery

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