Insight 03Technical article
One truthper field
Two systems, the same fields. To keep them from drifting apart, every field in our setup has exactly one owner. A map in five sections.
Section 01 / 05Two islands
Two systems know the same client.
The admin system holds invoices, payments and master data. The company OS holds conversations, decisions and tasks. A bridge syncs the two every five minutes.
- Admin system System of Record
- Company OS System of Context
Section 02 / 05The danger
Last write wins. We do not allow that.
If someone corrects a name on one side and the sync writes back from the other, in the end nobody knows which value is right.
Section 03 / 05The map
Every field has exactly one owner.
Per field, not per object. A company’s name, status and address belong to the admin system. Relationship, people and conversations belong to the company OS.
- Name Admin system
- Status Admin system
- Address Admin system
- Relationship Company OS
- People Company OS
- Conversations Company OS
Section 04 / 05The direction
Corrections are made at the original.
The copy follows, never the other way round. And a note never stands in for a missing invoice.
Section 05 / 05The check
A check that only reports.
Every day it compares linked pairs. It is not allowed to correct anything: two paths that write would mean a second truth again. The first run found five kinds of mismatch.
- Name spelt differently
- Only on one side
- Draft without a counterpart
- Cancelled, but not quite
- Deleted and replaced