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Emerging technologies have accelerated the revolutionary process in the recent decade and challenged the business community like never before. Intelligent machines are now helping workers in overwhelming tasks. Communication technology has virtual team collaboration possible. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is automizing repetitive tasks to enable team workers to focus on core business technologies. Technologies have shaped the world we live in and made our daily tasks easier to perform. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of digital technologies in continuing and boosting business operations.As the people department, HR is on the verge of collapse due to overwhelming challenges that require instant response and decision-making. HR has to assist organizations in responding to rapidly evolving needs in the workplace, such as managing remote teams, virtual leadership, digital collaboration, and providing a safe working environment. On the other hand, it needs to be prepared for the challenges waiting to be popped up once the pandemic ends, such as assisting businesses in coping with brutal pandemic impacts, evaluating the employee’s experience, and boosting on-site and off-site work teams productivity. To fulfill overcome these challenges, HR has to rely heavily on technology and boost its technological adaptability. By doing so, it will be able to accelerate its internal operations and focus on core HR tasks, such as developing a futuristic employee workforce. [lwptoc skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]Most HR departments stick to their conventional ways of work and refrain from welcoming technological advancement, which slows down implementing innovative ideas and applications despite the numerous perks of adopting advanced technologies.

Introduction

Consider the example of Automation technologies that can unleash the potential of operational superiority by handling repetitive tasks and rule-based tasks previously operated by humans. Due to its efficiency in handling iterative activities, automation could replace most HR roles such as payroll clerks, HR assistants, and recruiting agents. Employees whose tasks can be automated can be replaced with automation technology and placed into other job roles.Augmentation technologies are intended to improve HR decision-making capability. Augmentation uses technology to help humans perform routine activities and link with the knowledge and information-driven roles in HR. It benefits especially from the interaction between humans and technologies to attain business goals and performance supremacy. Employees under the influence of augmentation have the leverage to continue doing their jobs while becoming more productive and efficient.In general, both automation and augmentation technologies can improve HR operations and efficiency and its organizational aspect and sustainably drive the future of job roles in the HR domain. As discussed, many jobs will become obsolete due to automation and augmentation shortly, and the HR department is no exception. To align with evolving needs and challenges for HR to contribute to organizations, it must adopt new technologies, richly supplies the employees with future-proof skills.

Automation and Technology Challenging HR

With the instant expansion of automation and augmentation, it is crucial to evaluate their certain impact on HR so that the HR department should e able to accelerate its performance and assist the organization in shaping its digital future.

Enablement of Traditional HR Roles

The HR job roles can be sorted into categories mainly impacted by automation and those that will mostly be influenced by augmentation. However, depending on certain nature, some roles can be affected by both.

Effect of Automation

The above illustrations show the plausible impact of automation on a multitude of conventional HR roles in five and ten years, as well as an overall prediction related to HR roles in general. Automation involves scenarios such as process automation or mobile robotics occupying mainstream job roles performed by human counterparts in today’s world.

According to reports, around 6% of HR job roles will be automated and streamlined in five years. This number will hike to almost 12% in the next ten years.For instance, the payroll and timekeeping clerk, a mainstream HR role possessing different iterative and administrative tasks, such as processing time and payroll data and preparing paychecks, will largely be impacted by automation technologies. Within the next five years, around 44 percent of this role will be affected by automation, most of which will be caused by process automation technologies. In ten years, almost 70% of this role will be obsolete.Administrative roles like HR assistant will be equally affected by automation. More than 20% of these job roles are automated in the next five years, and around 45% of the job roles become obsolete in the upcoming ten years. The payroll and timekeeping clerks are most likely to face automatization and are handled by process automation technologies. Other HR roles involving some iterative tasks, such as the compensation and benefits specialist, experience moderate automation. The specialists will experience around 2.6% of their roles handled by automation within five years and around 11% in the upcoming ten years.Then there are other job roles in HR, such as the labor relations expert, that will experience negligible effects due to automation. Around 0.3% of those job roles will be automated in the upcoming five years, and automation utilities will replace only 1.0% in ten years.

Effect of Augmentation

The HR roles in question here are typically those impacted by but will also leverage from augmentation. They require dedicated human effort and interaction and knowledge to carry out non-iterative and complex tasks.

Augmentation will notably impact HR roles that are knowledge-driven and require human assistance to solve complex problems. Consider the labor relations specialist performing tasks such as including contract negotiations and consultations on labor relations problems. This role will be augmented by 15.7% within five years and 47.7% in the upcoming ten years. It will leverage the increasing augmentation of activities due to overwhelming capacity generation via fast decision making and modern technologies taking over time-consuming administrative tasks like compiling contracts or collecting data from legal documents. Further development is driven by the plausible augmentation impact on HR roles, such as the industrial-organizational psychologists or training and development managers, experiencing around 15% augmentation in the next five years and around 43%–45% in the next ten years period.In general, around 15% of today’s HR job roles will be influenced by augmentation technologies in the next five years. This percentage will hike to more than 35% in the next ten years, requiring the instant development of certain training programs to upskill the affected employees.The outcomes reveal that mainstream HR roles are impacted by automation and augmentation, making it mandatory to reshape the way HR works. However, mainstream HR roles will be affected by automation and augmentation in the future and the overall operational structure of HR.

Future HR Strategies

The following three crucial strategies that HR must adapt to meet the contemporary and future challenges and move forward while remaining a relevant and competitive aspect of the organizational structure. The illustration below demonstrates these strategies.

1. The first strategy focuses on the use of data analytics is driving the business towards its goal. For instance, the futuristic role of workforce architect, whose role is to attract and retain a global, multi-generational, and diverse talent base. This role will also provide real-time data to drive rational and speedy decision-making and respond quickly to the changing needs.
2. The second strategy centers around the human aspect of HR. That is, improving the employee experience by predicting and acknowledging the requirements. Consider a role is of career consultant, who guides leaders with the help of analytics, oversees or regional trends, and talent management planning.
3. Last but not the least, the third strategy for the future HR serves as a digital culture engine. This strategy will guide HR in developing and sustaining a purposeful, innovative, and digital corporate culture to boost organizational efficiency and employee satisfaction while ensuring a safe and productive physical workspace that allows balanced on-site and off-site collaboration. For instance, the role of culture builder, who allows employees to enjoy the human experience rather than an employee experience in an evolving digital world.

A Glimpse of the Future HR Operations

The future HR strategies rely heavily on a data-driven approach with state-of-the-art digital and technological assistance that will reform the HR department. But how will HR operations evolve while benefiting from the unleashed magic of advanced technologies? The illustration below showcases the HR operations and the employee lifecycle that leverage overwhelmingly by adopting automation and augmentation technologies.

For recruiting operations, automation technologies such as advanced machine learning algorithms natural language processing (NLP) can cross-check CV data with job profiles, which is one of the most time-consuming processes of a recruiting agent. Shifting these activities to automation technologies like Robotic Process automation, Optical Image Recognition, and Natural Language Processing obsolete traditional roles and spare the resources, energy, and time used in core tasks. Predictive analytics can also influence recruiting tasks up to a great extent. For instance, if the business goal focuses on developing cloud-based products requiring a special knowledge base, HR experts such as a workforce architect could fill the talent voids and training requirements based on predictive workforce analysis, suggesting necessary recommendations on hiring talent. Moreover, technologies such as Natural Language Processing provide the basis for an objective application to job match. It provides recruiting agents a chance to makeshift from traditional and intuition-based recruitment to data-driven decisions to hire or cancel applicants. These, in turn, obsolete traditional roles and boost objectivity and indiscriminating and bias-free recruitment.In the case of workforce planning. Predictive workforce analytics driven by deep forest algorithms can determine the probability of employees resigning and the impact on the organization. Moreover, modern AI algorithms can outline possible reasons and help HR build countermeasures, such as bonuses, flexible hours, or a healthy environment.

Also Read: 9 Ways PowerBI Can Improve Organization Management

Talent management operations will experience more changes due to automation and augmentation technologies. For instance, talent specialists could enjoy the perks of Robotic Process Automation in training administration via automated participants.Moreover, AI technologies could assist the HR department in deciding which pieces of training to conduct on-site or remotely and make recommendations about when to delay or cancel a meeting or training session. Apart from improving training sessions, the learning experience could be enhanced using VR-supported programs and utilities to help experience a real-life training scenario.Automation technologies will manage a multitude of administrative activities; HR specialists such as a career consultant could focus on developing training platforms, such as AI-based digital learning platforms, which could offer supervised training sessions with the help of machine learning and deep learning algorithms and offer interactive courses and programs to assist employees on their grooming journey. Another technology that has the potential to transform HR Operations fully is intelligent chatbots. Chatbots can help HR in various ways, such as onboarding recruits, providing them as much information as needed, etc. Using machine learning algorithms, the chatbot can learn and adapt new information and actions from users’ input and answer frequently asked questions. This technology can replace manual responses with iterative and frequently asked questions that would conventionally be answered by administrative HR staff.

A Future-Proof HR Model

The change in HR work structure demands not only a change in HR job roles and responsibilities, but this overwhelming change needs to be adapted by deploying a state-of-the-art HR operating model.

A future-proof operating model should allow the HR department to work with collaborative approaches and technology-driven decisions while providing high adaptability to evolving economic and business demands. The three globally applicable approaches discussed below are instrumental in developing such a model:

• Business centricity

Adapt your HR operating model to your business requirements, beginning with the future HR roles mandatory to achieve your long-term business goals.

• Agile mindset and behavior

Develop and acquire an agile mindset and methodologies to become flexible in responding to business requirements and shaping a motivating and effective work environment.

• HR ecosystem

Develop an HR ecosystem with data and AI experts within your organization and develop capability-centric project teams to boost HR operations.Every organization has to deal with different and diverse circumstances and challenges, so it has first to outline its priorities and objectives. There are different variations between today’s conventional, widely-adopted operating model and a fully agile operating model, offering every company the chance to develop its roadmap.

Trends 2.0 - Leading the Future of HR

Growing Market for HR Outsourcing

As HR roles become more complex, more companies show a keen interest in making their operations more efficient. Surprisingly, it triggers a transition towards outsourcing HR services of experts having the required experience and skillset. According to the statistics, the international human resource HR outsourcing market is expected to occupy a huge share of around $43.8 billion by 2024.This notable upsurge in HR outsourcing may also be influenced by the increasing role and partition of HR in the corporate sector and the expansion of HR technologies. In the same way, the complexity of contemporary challenges and employment regulations may bound organizations to acquire professional services outside their ecosystem.

This trend of overwhelming reliance on outsourcing doesn’t mean that organizations will stop maintaining internal HR departments as HR departments will remain instrumental in internal processes such as managing employee relations.

Embracing GIG Economy

The days of mainstream and conventional employment will end as the gig economy is becoming a new normal. More employees are opting for the flexibility of gig work as the gig economy currently possesses one-third of all US workforce. Employees enjoy this work routine due to utmost autonomy and flexibility, resulting in better work-life equilibrium.In a recent survey, over one-third, that is 36% of Americans, are engaged in the gig economy, according to Fortune, 2021. Apart from that, 52% of gig workers state that they have lost their jobs or reduced their work hours due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Statista, 2021.To swiftly deal with this transition away from conventional long-term employment, HR professionals and senior management must find new ways to keep their employees agile and efficient.

Software and apps for recruiting and monitoring employees are becoming a substitute for traditional worker management methodologies, and freelance platforms will soon become mainstream in organizations’ frontline recruitment utilities.

New Ways to Engage Employees

Many contemporary HR trends and challenges involve improving employee engagement, especially with statistics revealing that more than 80% of employees don’t feel fully satisfied and engaged at work, according to Cision PR Newswire, 2019.One way HR officials can keep their employees more engaged at work is to revise their corporate environment. It can be more fruitful, as employees now will start feeling empowered to share their narratives. They want to put more effort into their work and think of it as their duty, not just their job. Effectivenarrativesn Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program can also prove an effective recruitment strategy, as employees prefer organizations that provide them with volunteer opportunities.Organizational and corporate culture are perfect insights for the Employees who want to know more about how organizations run. They want their voices to be heard regarding corporate strategies and implementation. It causes organizational culture to shift from traditional hierarchies to modern structures involving employees in decision-making and core business functions.Additionally, the pandemic crisis and problems have pushed towards employees and employers, making it crucial for employers to check what their employees are doing and how they are doing. Giving priority to employees’ mental health as the primary indicator of performance is becoming a new norm.

Blockchain Improved Security

Data is the new oil. With plenty of data that HR teams have to deal with, it’s not surprising that many experts expect blockchain technology to cast its shadow on the HR sector. Due to its decentralized structure, blockchain shows promising results in providing the most-needed, long-term security measures for sensitive employee data. Data security is the hottest issue nowadays, thanks to the increasing use of employee self-service software utilities and the quick adoption of cloud-based systems.Using blockchain technology, HR teams can develop secure and data-enriched employee records, verify the authenticity of system users, keep employment history, and even streamline iterative tasks such as tax administration and payroll.In the same way, blockchain methodologies like smart contracts can help automate contract management services for the HR department. These contracts make it notably simple for all stakeholders to record and verify all transactions and alteration footprints. These contracts also eliminate the need for manual input in allowing transactions for contracts.

Final Thoughts

As the aforementioned HR trends and predictions show, the future will offer various exciting opportunities and complex challenges for HR teams. These factors push HR professionals to explore and adopt new methodologies of maintaining productivity and efficiency in their core functions, especially in employee engagement and retention. As we have, technology is revolutionizing the way HR professionals perform their duties. More HR software utilities will be developed to ease the burden of time-consuming and repetitive tasks with time. More advanced technologies such as AI, Blockchain, AR, and VR will open more opportunity corridors for HR teams.To stay aligned with HR trends, HR professionals must predict changes in the HR industry and start adjusting their HR model to prepare their employees for the new normal in response to the evolving economic environment, geopolitical economy, and challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amidst the Covid-19 outbreak, we have witnessed a lot of changes around the globe. Within a glimpse of an eye, countries went into complete lockdown to contain the spread of a virus, restricted social gatherings, which restricted people to work remotely. To address the new challenges, businesses started to find new ways to continue their operations remotely by adapting a variety of collaborative platforms and video conferencing utilities to remain intact with their employees and clients.Even before the pandemic, technology had become an integrated aspect of the workforce. Businesses were looking at technology as a helpful utility of interacting with customers, enabling some operational scalability, and for a way to adapt automation and quick processing. However, the spread of the coronavirus and the containment measures boost this adaptation process faster. It forced companies to consider creative digital to continue their function remotely and serve their client base with zero hurdles.[lwptoc skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]The restriction in gathering as groups pushed many professional organizations to find modern solutions and tools to ensure communication, collaboration, and task completion. In the meantime, customers have expressed their interest in receiving services with little to no contact with people, demanding remote and contact-less operations from customer-facing departments and job roles.All these factors fueled the digital transformation that has impacted businesses throughout the world. Exploring how these transformations have cast contrasting shadows over the businesses can help people acknowledge how organizations can adopt digital transformation and which aspects of such transformation will likely last longer.Below are the notable changes the businesses went through in recent times.

Changing Priorities and Perspective

Businesses have been encouraged to determine that integrating technology into their existing systems requires utmost perfection or technical expertise. Organizations involving different industries have been able to adapt to these changes notably quicker than expected. According to statistics, companies could adopt digital changes 20 to 25 times faster than expected. Specifically, when it comes to remote working, businesses could introduce solutions 40 times faster than they would have expected before the COVID-19 outbreak. What employees would have expected to take a year-long effort to implement at their organizations took an average of 10 to 15 days. The brands could create an effective solution to enable employees to continue their jobs while staying at home.Simply coming up with a solution that functions adequately enables businesses to remain active while allowing employees to work remotely in compliance with containment measures. Most businesses thought that a lack of prioritization was a primary reason digital transformations and capabilities were not adopted, but Covid-19 encouraged organizations to make these changes their top priority. They were bound to do so with an overwhelming pace.

Employee and Customer satisfaction

Due to the increasing trends and need for remote work, companies are forced to think carefully about the degree of dependence of employees on digital technology. They could not simply force employees to start doing with what’s available. With many businesses coping with adapting to the challenging conditions that the pandemic has introduced, paying attention to the significance of introducing an effective digital platform for employees involves many perks for businesses.In the same way, brands are also adapting the ways and digital mediums that can improve customers’ experience and engagement. With customers involved in digitally sustaining rich interactions with brands, businesses must adopt practices that ensure their customers do not face any problems while shopping and converting on their websites.

Evaluation of existing technology to reduce costs

The sudden upsurge in digital transformation has also pushed many businesses to start organizing their technology investments through a ‘spring cleaning’ process. In the pre-covid period, when businesses depend less on their digital capabilities, it is easy for redundancies or service errors to be neglected by both employees and business owners. However, the adaption with an overwhelming dependence on technology triggered by the pandemic has pushed people to ponder over their technology investments and how they align with what they need to run a digitally-enabled business efficiently.Brands have started evaluating the software and digital capabilities they depend upon to check if there are overlapping costs, unnecessary expenditure, or redundancies in operations or modules. Examining why the businesses invested in many technologies to check if there is any justification for the services driving money outflow is mandatory to maintain a budget-friendly approach. Finding ways to eliminate unnecessary expenditures while ensuring that the priorities of the different departments are met is a crucial aspect of smart budget expenditure. Similarly, it is equally essential to look for gaps in the services and examine how other businesses are doing with their digital services and their shortcomings. Businesses need to understand how technology can assist them in streamlining their processes so that the brand can operate effectively in the online world, creating a hurdle-free and direct experience for employees and customers.The primary objective here is to create automated services across the organization. Conferencing platforms, software utilities for hosting projects, tracking mechanisms to monitor customer experiences and reviews, and other important software tools should be opted to create a unified digital experience so that the brand can perform well with fewer complexities and interruptions as possible.

Automation as a way to improve the customer experience

With the increasing demand for contactless services from customers’ end, brands have also experienced a dramatic push towards automation, which interns improved their ability to introduce contactless services for customers. The more automated and tech-driven process, the easier it is for brands to offer safe experiences for their customers.Automation offers great opportunities for brands, such as assistance in managing every process from inventory to customer care. While many businesses have already started to realize the potential of automation in streamlining routine and iterative tasks, more and more companies are pushed by the COVID-19 crisis to change their conventional ways of doing business and enjoy the perks offered by technology and digitization.This trend is instrumental in manufacturing businesses, as the advantages of automation to reducing human interaction by downsizing the staff are notable.

Technology as a tool to innovate and thrive

In the pre-COVID period, many businesses hold a perspective regarding technology as a utility to spare money. For instance, an automated email and order confirmation system spare the marketing and sales team from many iterative tasks and focus on core processes that cannot be handled through automation and technology. But it comes amidst a by-product of other benefits as well. A digital transformation also enables businesses to innovate and improve overall ranking.With the increasing need for lockdown and other containment measures, businesses started to discover the bright side of technology. More businesses reported that creating a business ecosystem centered around data and technology allows them to attain a competitive edge, make informed decisions and improve innovation and value addition.Using technology with a broad perspective allows brands to engage more customers, address their needs, and make their way forward.

Cybersecurity - Challenges and Solutions

Another top trend is cybersecurity concern which comes amidst the increasing dependence of businesses on technology. As businesses across industries rely heavily on technology and data to carry out complex operations and handle important projects, putting an adequate cyber security and information security system in place should be a top priority.The average cybersecurity breach takes an average of 280 days to identify and resolve, which provides crackers a wide window of time to cause immense damages to the company’s data and computer systems. As more employees are working remotely and accessing companies’ servers from their homes and coffee shops, the probability of plausible intrusion is also increased. Therefore, conventional practices to ensure cybersecurity within organizations have also been reformed. In addition to maintaining internal networks, companies have started educating and preparing their remote workforce for any unforeseen problem. Use capabilities such as virtual private networks (VPN) to educate and protect employees from scams or attacks.In the wake of the necessity to work remotely, many companies have recognized the importance of increasing their cybersecurity expenditure. However, it creates a deadlock of problems for the industries worst hit by the pandemic, with decreased revenues forcing budgets to shrink while, on the other hand, the increasing need for cybersecurity.

The age of digital transformation in the post-COVID era

As the world is waiting for the pandemic to end, there exists a question on the future of the multitude of reforms, infrastructures, and practices businesses have adapted to survive during the pandemic. Certainly, most of these reforms are here to stay. The ongoing pandemic encouraged businesses to curb many hurdles that once blocked their way to digital transformation by taking network security measures and developing infrastructures and mechanisms to allow employees to work remotely. Another reason to continue the existing work model is that companies have already made notable investments to protect their digital security and create technological sustainability that allows employees to work from their homes. Last but not the least, the overall productivity and satisfaction of employees working remotely are increased significantly due to perfect work-life balance and flexible working hours.As we have discussed earlier, adopting technology is about saving expenditure, gaining an edge over competitors in a dynamic market, and cracking new opportunities in the industry when it comes to digital transformation. As businesses realize these advantages, they will gear up to keep deploying newer technologies and capitalize on what it has to offer.

End Words

Technology allows businesses to unleash their hidden potential to engage with people around the world within no time. In pre-COVID order, many organizations were uncertain about the opportunities offered by technology. But with the restriction on physical meetings and work to comply with containment measures, organizations who were shy to leave their conventional ways of doing business quickly realized just how powerful technology can be. The way the COVID-19 pandemic helped to boost the digital transformation and created an infrastructure layout, businesses will continue to embrace innovation and technological adoption as a way to move forward. With a better understanding of the capabilities offered by digital transformation, businesses will be likely to capitalize using the opportunities that lie before them, even after the pandemic is over.

Internet of Things - IoT is taking over the world like never before. That includes everything from the smart speakers in our rooms, AI-based gadgets, and interactive kiosks at the food courts. For a business to gain customers’ attention in such an environment is undoubtedly a challenging task and an opportunity.

The primary question businesses need to ask themselves are:

• How can we effectively distribute our content in front of the right audience, at the right time, and on a suitable device, amidst the multitude of diverse variables in action?
• Apart from that, what is the most effective way to scale the content marketing and advertising strategy to reach more devices and touchpoints?

This is where the role of headless content management comes into play. A headless CMS is based on a modular architecture that decouples content creation, management, and publishing from how it’s displayed. It allows marketing and editorial teams to publish new content and developers teams to make new tech updates without depending on the other for help or worrying about blocking any process.

Application programming interface (API) technology allows content modules to be quickly optimized and distributed on various channels like websites, mobile applications, intelligent gadgets, digital billboards, kiosks, chatbot knowledge bases, and every other modern consumer channel.

Headless CMS is part of the MACH methodology. MACH methodology is based on four fundamental principles:

• Flexible Microservices to deliver state-of-the-art functionality
• APIs for infinite flexibility,
• Cloud for affordability and scalability
• The Headless approach so that it can function without hurdles on any platform.

Businesses and enterprises can use the fundamental theme of any front-end utility (API) they want to present the content. They can enjoy the freedom of delivering content beyond websites and apps to any medium, from digital kiosks to smartwatches and VR headsets.

Top 20 Headless CMS to use in 2022

1. Butter CMS

Butter CMS is a Chicago-based, API-first CMS that was introduced in 2014. Salient Features of Butter CMS include:

• Custom page types
• Relational content modeling
• Webhooks
• CDN support
• Multi-site support
• Testing emulator
• Customizable Admin interface

Butter CMS provides an ecosystem for independent blogging that you can integrate into any framework.For marketers, Butter CMS provides a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) interface to support the development of SEO landing pages, customer case studies, news pages, etc.

‍Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

2. Contentstack

San Francisco-based Contentstack was introduced in 2007, is a headless CMS that provides RESTful APIs. Its rich Features include:

• Content previews
• Collaboration
• Asset management
• Workflow management
• Versioning.

Turnkey integrations for utilities such as Marketo, Salesforce, and Eloqua, also come available.

‍Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

3. Contentful

Introduced in 2013 by a German-based company, Contentful offers an API-based headless CMS. Contentful’s RESTful API allows developers complete control over content, digital assets, and translations. The platform leverages caching techniques and external CDN integrations to allow the distribution of API payloads in the sub-100ms range.It can showcase JSON snippets, a rich-text editor, and its content modeling features allow marketers to outline and separate individual fields and content modules such as text, images, and calendars.

‍Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

4. dotCMS

DotCMS is an open-source headless CMS introduced by a Florida-based tech company in 2003. DotCMS is not a new name in the world of content management. Their Java CMS ensures multilingual and multi-tenant capabilities parallel with a WYSIWYG interface and drag-and-drop tools that allow non-technical individuals like marketers to effectively interact with content modeling platforms, develop workflows, and modify their page layout.  DotCMS can be hosted either on-premise or in the cloud. The platform provides features like:

• Analytics dashboard
• Customization tools
• Custom endpoint building
• Support for 3rd party tools like AWS, Docker, Salesforce, etc.

Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

5. Mura

California-based Mura is an open-source decoupled CMS that comes with plenty of features for marketers and IT experts to capitalize on. It is recommended to explore a highly customizable WYSIWYG editing interface, custom navigation creator, multi-device content previews, and an integrated analytics dashboard for marketers. Developers enjoy the perks of APIs, Docker support, CSS framework utility, and support for renowned JavaScript frameworks such as Vue.js, React.js., & Ember.js.

‍Variants:

• Free Version Available

6. Cockpit CMS

It is a free, open-source, and self-hosted headless CMS introduced by Germany. Cockpit declares itself a “content provider,” not a website developer, as it is a backend utility that holds and distributes content across multiple channels. The lack of editing utilities to alter the presentation of your content is what makes it a dedicated headless CMS.The platform depends on APIs and JSON to deliver and showcase the content.

‍Variants: Free and Open Source

7. Core DNA

The Boston-based company introduced Core DNA as a headless CMS platform that comprises around 80 different applications that assist digital experience management, eCommerce, and intranets.

With a rich multi-tenant and decoupled structure, the SaaS platform offers features such as:

• Personalization
• Multi-site management
• Localization
• Integrations
• Framework agnosticism
• Comprehensive inventory management.

The platform also offers a WYSIWYG editing interface to support rich text and media management.

‍Variants:

• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

8. Craft CMS

In 2013, Craft CMS was a Bend OR-based “content-first” headless CMS that allows users to manipulate experiences throughout their content.

Craft CMS provides features like:

• Custom fields
• Drag-and-drop layout management
• Multi-site management
• Localization
• Asset management
• Live content previews
• Built-in image editor.

Each user maintains their own customizable and highly visual dashboards.

‍Variants:

• Free Version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

9. Zesty.io

Zesty.io is a San Diego-based headless CMS that provides utilities for both marketers and developers.

For marketers, Zesty.io offers features like:

• Template and page building
• Workflow management
• Automated SEO
• Advanced SEO tools
• Tools to launch microsites and landing pages

For developers, Zesty.io provides:

• content-aware templating
• Custom endpoint building
• Built-in staging environments
• Customizable content models to support headless JSON APIs.

Variants:

• Enterprise plans Available

10. Directus

New York-based Directus is an open-source headless CMS and API tool. Using Vue.js., Directus effectively handles custom-schema SQL databases. The theme behind Directus is that developers can develop custom databases per specific project needs without having any prerequisite skill of working with a framework or any other IT skill. Once the database is prepared, Directus’ API or SDKs can be integrated. The outcome is a customizable and interactive interface that allows business users to manage database content for their websites and applications.

‍Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

11. DatoCMS

DatoCMS is an Italian headless content as a service (CaaS) utility that supports multiple languages. By doing so, DatoCMS enables brands to:

• Organize digital assets in separate folders
• Locate media files quickly using AI-based tagging and search utilities
• Publish content wherever required

Variants:

• Free Version Available

12. GraphCMS

It is a Germany-based API-first CMS that was introduced in 2017. The platform is based on GraphQL, a data query language that, according to some experts, is the successor to REST. GraphCMS enables developers to create a hosted GraphQL backend for their application that provides the liberty of defining relations, structures, and authorizations for the app data. It also comes with several utilities to create and effectively  handle the content, including:

• Text editors
• Asset management
• Workflows
• User roles
• Multilingual support.

Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

13. Cosmic JS

Cosmic JS is a cloud-hosted headless CMS platform that provides both RESTful and GraphQL APIs. The platform provides features like:

• Content modeling
• Localization
• Webhooks
• Media management
• WYSIWYG  editing interface
• Support for third-party utilities like GitHub and Typeform.

The CMS supports integration with Slack, AWS, Stripe, HubSpot, and Algolia.

‍Variants:

• Free Community version
• Premium Plan

14. Kontent.ai (Kentico)

Kentico Cloud, marketed as Kontent.ai, is a Czech Republic-based SaaS headless CMS that enables developers to integrate existing technologies and develop sites using the languages, methodologies, utilities, and frameworks. It also offers several SDKs, secured access to API, and SLA-promised uptime. As far as content creation is concerned, Kentico Cloud provides a WYSIWYG interface and enables editors to collaborate, manage workflow, design content layout, customize different aspects of the process, and localization.

‍Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

15. Prismic.io

US-based Prismic is a SaaS headless CMS that offers:

• Visual editor
• Custom type builds
• Multi-language support
• Full revision history.
• Native integrations with top eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento

Prismic also provides scheduling options and project management utilities to ensure collaboration and intelligent workflow management. It provides developers rich development kit for their desired programming language or framework.

‍Variants:

• Free version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

16. Bold (Quintype)

Founded in 2014, an Indian platform, Quintype is an API-based headless CMS intended to serve digital media organizations and news media outlets. Quintype’s interactive editing interface allows:

• Collaborative content generation
• Rich features to manage workflow effectively
• Automated publishing
• Support for both multilingual and multi-format content.

Quintype’s CMS engine also provides features like:

• Engagement tracking
• Dashboard for Real-time analytics
• Automated daily reports
• Author performance indicators

Quintype’s “auto-scaling infrastructure” provides support for Facebook blogs, Googe AMP, content syndication as well as push notifications.

‍Variants:

• Free version
• Enterprise plan

17. Sanity

Introduced in 2015, Sanity is a Norway-based, state-of-the-art open-source headless CMS Oslo. Built on JavaScript and React.js, Sanity provides an interactive WYSIWYG editing interface that enables users to embed editable data in existing content. It also offers a Sweet Query API that allows processing multiple queries on a single request.Sanity richly provides:

• Real-time collaboration
• Live to preview
• Content versioning.

Variants:

• Free version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

18. Scrivito

Scrivito was introduced by Germany, a headless CMS that supports AWS, JavaScript, and ReactJS. Its rich features include:

• WYSIWYG drag-and-drop editing interface
• User permissions
• Collaboration
• Client-side rendering
• CDN support
• Dynamic Image Resizing

Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

19. Sitecore

US-based Sitecore is regarded as a WCM industry leader by Gartner. The enterprise variant of this platform provides:

• Sitecore Experience Platform
• Content Hub
• Experience Manager
• Experience Commerce
• In-context editing and designing
• Cross-channel preview
• Enterprise-class search
• Asset management
• Content targeting

Variants:

• Demo available on request

20. DNN Evoq Content

Evoq Content is the open-source headless CMS that provides various features favorable for both marketing and IT operations. Marketers can leverage upon features like:

• WYSIWYG editing interface
• Inline image editing
• Content layout module
• Liquid Content (To allow content flow to any medium or device, in a traditional headless manner)

For developers, it provides utilities like

• Module creator
• Built-in JavaScript libraries
• Dot NET API

Variants:

• Free trial version
• Premium Plan
• Enterprise plan

How can you choose the right headless CMS?

There is a multitude of options that makes it challenging to navigate through the ocean of features. We think it’s best to focus on a CMS that allows you to thrive and is highly adaptable and scalable as per your requirements. Below is the list of questions you need to ponder over to evaluate your choice effectively.

• Is it possible to develop the kinds of content structures you need to?
• Is it necessary to look after content hosting and maintenance all by yourself?
• Will your content be stored securely and privately?
• Would real-time editing and collaboration improve your workflows?
• Will your comprehensive text content be locked to HTML?
• Can you scale your content operations without spending extra money?
• What is the procedure for managing files and images?

Headless API Types

To better evaluate the value of a headless CMS, it’s mandatory to know more about APIs. API stands for Application Programming Interface. In the given context, it means you get content in a way that is simpler to integrate with existing or new software utilities. Typically, you do this by sending the headless CMS a network request to an API end node. This network request is much more the same thing you do while visiting a webpage, but instead of a web page, you get a list of the backend of the content.

While using this information to develop software using a programming approach with APIs, most Developers prefer them because it provides them complete control of how to develop their application. Some CMSes also allow you to change content using APIs. API is a broad area that goes beyond the domain of CMSes and the World Wide Web. Therefore, exploring the two frequently-used APIs is recommended when we talk about content management, namely REST and GraphQL.

What is REST API?

APIs can be more or less scalable when it comes to developing applications on top of them. In mainstream practice, Headless CMSes have offered REST APIs. They outline the content behind multiple URLs such as posts, authors, or images. Developers have to deal with multiple requests with the IDs of the variety of content types together. REST APIs can be effective for simple data structures, but this approach can be time-consuming if your content models are more complex. It requires more effort to change or mold these APIs for different purposes.

What is GraphQL?

Facebook introduced GraphQL as an alternative to the less flexible REST approach. It allows you to query the API with the fields and relationships you require for each event. This is exactly how you interact with the databases. It also makes it simple to introduce new fields and content types as your system grows horizontally. The reason to choose more flexible and scalable APIs is to eliminate the hurdles to reuse content across different channels.

End Words

Going headless or transitioning from an old-school content management methodology to an advanced one will likely be an overwhelming task. Still, it’ll save both your time and money if you opt for the right headless CMS platform per your feasibility and priorities.

The eCommerce industry is skyrocketing like never before, especially due to the COVID19 crisis. In addition, due to containment measures, online shopping that was once used to be a convenience and luxury has become necessary. Stats reveal a notable upsurge in global eCommerce sales.

Many people want to explore the domain of eCommerce and show a keen interest in launching their very own eCommerce store. However, if your objective is to start earning instantaneously, the goal should be a scalable & engaging eCommerce Store. Suppose you want to add true value to the contemporary online market to earn you a notable return over minimal investment. In that case, this blog post will take you to the journey of a 10-step guide to launch your eCommerce store using Shopify.– from picking a brand name to acknowledging shipping alternatives. Let’s discuss every step included.

1. Getting Started

There are many eCommerce platforms to opt from, but Shopify provides a very user-friendly interface, offers a free 14-day trial, and is efficient enough to handle your growth. Start by making an account on Shopify by entering your email address, password, and unique brand/store name.

You’ll then be provided with another page that needs you to enter personal and business information. It’s a good practice if you do it without skipping this option later. Don’t forget to:

• Setting up Google Analytics – it’s your much-needed tool to reduce cart abandonment.
• Adding your credit card details – you don’t want all your effort and progress to disappear once your 14-trial days are finished.

2. Personalize Your eCommerce Store

Here comes the most interesting part, that is, building your eCommerce store.

Buying your domain (optional)

Your domain name is your website address. Shopify automatically assigns you a .myshopify.com domain for free, but if you’re curious about brand image and growth, you are recommended to purchase a personalized domain name. Go to your Shopify admin and click Online Store >Domains >Buy a new domain and start searching your domain name from available options. Ideally, it must be easy to cram, quick to type, and possess your store/brand name.

Selecting a theme

Your theme is one of the most important entities that showcase your website’s presentation, appearance, feel, and ease of use for your customers, and it cast a notable impact on engagements and conversions. Go to the Shopify Theme Store to search for free or paid themes. All these themes are highly customizable and don’t require any coding or programming skills. Must ponder over sample web layouts and reviews. Make sure that your theme is optimized for smartphones.

Customizing your theme

Once you’ve selected a theme, you can begin customizing and adjusting as per your requirements. Go to the Shopify admin, click Themes>Customize and start customizing by adding colors, fonts, social media links, pictures, and visual options such as categories, lists, menus, and products per page.

Here, you’re gearing up to create an attractive visual flow and streamlined customer experience. Enrich your website with plenty of light color space, high-quality images, and an organized layout that drives visitors to your buy button.

Adding content

Once you’re done with your website’s overall appearance, look and feel, you need to add relevant content. Start by enriching:

• A home page;
• A contact us page;
• An about page (Don’t forget to add shipping and returns policies); and
• Category pages.

Refrain from using complex vocabulary. Instead, maintain clarity by using crystal clear and engaging words that improve your customers’ experience, and refrain from using lengthy paragraphs. Keep it as much simple as you can. Last but not least, add SEO-friendly content.

Adding extensions

You can boost your eCommerce website with utility applications and integrations but don’t get too carried away. Poorly designed apps can drive down your website’s performance and reduce engagements.

3. Add Products

What’s an eCommerce platform without any products? But wait a minute, you need to choose between where you’re getting your products from.

Dropshipping or not?

You have two viable options: opt for sourcing and owning products yourself or a dropshipping model. As a starter, dropshipping saves you a lot of effort and helps you avoid numerous risks as you market and sell the products of a third-party supplier, while the third-party supply stores and ships the products directly to the customer. In addition, dropshipping frees you from the burden of manufacturing and inventory management. The perks of dropshipping can be attractive for entrepreneurs, but one must not oversee the possibility of encountering poor delivery standards, limited inventory visibility, and less RoI. Another alternative is to source products by yourself and use an outsourced shipper to store and deliver.

Adding a product

To add a product, go to the Shopify admin and click Products >Add products and fill the product briefing including:

• A clear, concise, and relevant title;
• A complete, informative, and SEO-optimized product description;
• Clear, high-quality, and professionally outlooking images; and
• Any other relevant information such as price and variants etc.

Organizing your products

Imagine an eCommerce website with a poor layout and messy appearance, and you will hardly tend to stay on such a website, forget about searching and buying anything. Organizing your products into categories (for example, womenswear and menswear) is a lifeline of your business as it allows your customers to navigate your website easily. Create product categories and filters on the search page.

4. Select a Payment Gateway

Now, you want to make sure that you can accept payment for your products. First, choose a feasible payment gateway using the Payments section on the Shopify admin page. The key points to consider while choosing a payment gateway include:

• Transaction fees – taken on top of Shopify’s transaction fees;
• Payment options – the more payment methods you provide, the stronger customer base you can build; and
• On-site checkout – keeping payment methods on-site allows your customer to have a smooth purchase journey.

5. Line up your taxes

Depending upon your location, you may need to charge your customers for sales tax. Go to Settings >Taxes, where you can select tax regions and add options such as all-inclusive rates, shipping taxes, and taxes on digital items.

6. Create Shipping Policy

The next step is to ponder over your shipping rules and to dedicate shipping options. For example, is it rational to offer free 2-day shipping, as Walmart’s fast shipping program does?

Fast shipping costs you more than standard shipping, but it is worth the spending as it can skyrocket your customer’s satisfaction trajectory. Statistically, sellers experienced a 900% increase in sales by offering fast shipping on their products. Therefore, another directed strategy is offering fast shipping on your trending and best-selling items to increase their traction. Once you acknowledge which strategy you should opt for, decide how to fulfill your Shopify orders, fast delivery is an important concern for 99% of US consumers, so it is recommended to opt for the option to promise on-time delivery to your customers.

You met with the two choices here:

• Self-fulfillment - It means fulfilling orders from your home or warehouse and handling everything from labels to packaging and shipping on your own. This practice ensures you full control and deep analysis of your business operations.
• Outsourced fulfillment - It means partnering with an outsourced vendor that handles storage, packaging, shipping, and tracking of your products. Shopify-powered fulfillment vendors are a trusted option for eCommerce stores eager to benefit from professional staff expertise and suitable delivery rates.

Once you’re done choosing your method, you need to set your delivery fee.

Free shipping

Every customer prefers to form a platform that provides free shipping. You can later cover the costs of free shipping in the form of a sales boost.

Flat rate

Flat rates are driven by parameters like product destination, weight, or value. Flat shipping rates are favorable while selling items of similar sizes and weights. However, when items vary, the cost burden would be on the shoulders of either a customer or the seller.

Real-time shipping rates

Shopify integrates with specific shipping carriers to provide real-time shipping rates. Unfortunately, this option is only available on the most premium Shopify plan, and it doesn’t allow you to offer attractive rates. Once you’ve made your mind regarding how to ship and how much to charge, go to Settings >Shipping and add shipping origin, destinations, weights, sizes, and rates.  

Source: Shopify

7. Test

Before going live, it’s very important to test your eCommerce site, specifically:

• Accessing your store;
• Exploring the products on your site;
• Buying a product (Apart from Shopify’s bogus gateway, it is recommended to use the real payment gateway to ensure it works)
• Testing on multiple devices.

Is the process hurdle-free and quick? Do you find what you want easily? Are there any errors? Are you drawn to the checkout without any trouble? Are the shipping options and policies clear? Does your inventory update itself? Ultimately, would you prefer to buy from you? If your answer is NO, change anything that you think is causing trouble.

8. Market

Once you go live, you will realize it’s making any change at all without any customers. So prioritize a pre-launch marketing plan and utilize social media, podcasts, google ads, Facebook ads, youtube ads, discounts offers, and blog posts to boost engagement and gain customer retention.

9. Go live

It’s time to sound the launch drum and get ready to cut the ribbon as you launch yourself to go live. If you’re still using a 14-day trial version, you’ll need to choose a plan and then go to Online Store>Preferences, uncheck the Enable password page option, and click Save.

10. Expand

Congratulations – your eCommerce platform is now live, but you’re not done yet. Once you’re live for business, you need to start working on your next objective, that is, expansion.

Multi-channel selling

Seventy-five percent of online shoppers utilize a multitude of sales channels for locking a single purchase. Customers go through reviews, compare competitors, and most of the time prefer buying from a brand they trust. Integrating online marketplaces with your eCommerce store is the best way to engage these customers, and it’s easy to use multi-channel fulfillment vendors, cross-channel inventory utilities, and multi-channel listing tools.

Outsourcing fulfillment

If you opt for self-fulfillment at step six, you will find yourself bound as you try to expand. However, outsourcing your fulfillment in part or fully lessens your burden by handling strict delivery deadlines, especially during peak seasons. It also has additional advantages while selling on multiple sales channels, as it allows you to win your place in the fast shipping programs.

Getting reviews

Reviews influence more than 90 percent of consumers. So reviews about transparent tracking, excellent customer service, and timely deliveries surely create a difference by giving you a competitive edge over your potential rivals.

End Words

There are many advantages of having your eCommerce store, and with Shopify being so simple and easy to manage, you can easily turn your e-commerce startup dream into reality. Thinking of launching your e-commerce store, get in touch with us for consultation.

Nowadays, Headless WordPress is a trending topic. Most of the people who once heard the term aren’t quite sure what it is.WordPress is a comprehensive and state-of-art platform that features tools for bloggers and web developers to offer many opportunities. But it does have its limitations, and it doesn’t give you the scalability and freedom to do everything. For instance:

• Publishing content across multiple channels
• Developing your website in languages other than PHP and Javascript
• Using WordPress as an editing interface without the website attached

But you can enjoy all these functions with headless WordPress. It requires some technical effort, but you can use the back-end content management tools for nearly any task by decoupling WordPress from its front end.[lwptoc skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]Let’s discuss in detail what headless WordPress can do for you.

What is Headless WordPress?

A content management system (CMS) usually offers two frameworks.

• The front end
• The back end

The back end is where the management part comes in. In WordPress, the back end allows you to create and publish your content like blog posts and pages and manage different aspects of your site, such as settings, appearances, and other users.

The front end is what visitors see when they visit your website. In WordPress, the front end changes its appearance and updates pages as you work behind the curtain. To achieve this functionality, it uses the REST API to request data from the hidden back end and showcase it to the public front of the website.This “coupled” CMS platform serves well for most individuals, providing both an easy way to create a website and manage written content and blogs effectively. The flip side is, the front end and back end of such applications are often impossible to separate as they depend heavily on each other.On the other hand, a headless CMS decouples these two frameworks, leaving the back end intact. You have your database, admin control, and content management utilities but no theme or website. But with the help of REST API, you can attach anything to it, whether it’s an app, a website, or any other digital channel. It offers immense opportunities and scalability for developers.

Why Would You Want to Use a Headless CMS?

By turning WordPress headless, you disconnect the front end and acquire the freedom to independently use the back end for any purpose. Create your website, application, or content management platform out of it; the possibilities are overwhelming.WordPress is mainly developed using PHP, with a little Javascript used for a topping. Yet, a headless CMS can connect your website to third-party platforms coded in Ruby, Python, or other languages using the API. If you want to, you can code your entire website in a completely different language.And that’s exactly the lifeline here. You can enjoy the perks of having the features-rich WordPress installation and the ability to experience all the web frameworks that were previously incompatible.

Also Read: Top 20 Headless CMS – How to Choose the Right One

All you have to do is use the built-in REST API to connect your custom-made website and WordPress, and everything will fit together perfectly. This is how WordPress works already, but with a little code, you can sever the default connections and replace the front end with your work. If it can connect to an API, you can use it with WordPress.The decoupling of WordPress separates your content base from the presentation layer, which in turn improves security, especially if you have your website and WordPress admin on different servers and domains. All types of Cracking attempts, including Denial of Service - DoS attacks, will only be able to target one of these endpoints. So if you have huge security concerns, a headless CMS on a latent server might be the solution.Outro to the whole debate is that you have to use a headless CMS if you want to use the WordPress platform to connect to a custom website or application.

Headless WordPress - Opportunities and Limitations

When to Opt for Headless CMS?

Decoupling your CMS gives overwhelming freedom to developers so they can try new things and work with languages that were not compatible with WordPress before. Below are some specific use cases of Headless WordPress:

• WordPress’s robust management tools help you to create and track a record of content. In headless WordPress, if configured correctly, permalinks go straight away to the editing page. Add new authors and editors, utilize the user role system, and real-time collaboration on different projects. You could even use it as an independent editorial interface.
• Code your front-end website in a language or platform you feel more experienced while still enjoying the perks of WordPress’s perfectly curated blogging framework simultaneously.
• Even if you lack expertise in languages like HTML/CSS, PHP, and Javascript. Decouple WordPress and use your code.
• Alter frameworks at any time while keeping your content secure. Suppose you decide to revise everything from scratch in a different and more relevant framework in the upcoming days since you’re using an API. In that case, the edge over hard-coded conventional CMS, switching everything over is quite simple.
• Develop an application that calls functions from WordPress to showcase the content. Headless isn’t just restricted to websites as you could use WordPress with all sorts of digital channels.
• You would be able to use platforms and libraries that are not compatible with WordPress, such as Ruby on Rails, Django, Vue.js, React, and many more.
• Multichannel, multidevice, and cross-platform publishing is the core purpose of using API-driven headless cms. Isn’t it irritating and time-killing to post the same content to your website, applications, social media platforms, etc.? Using REST API, you can streamline the entire process, publishing WordPress content across multiple channels.

When Not to Use a Headless CMS?

No doubt, headless WordPress is an innovative approach, but there are some aspects you should keep in mind before deciding whether to switch from conventional CMS to headless CMS or not.

• If you’re not an expert developer, headless CMS can be more difficult to you than it’s worth. Tutorials can help you get most of the stuff done, but as for maintenance and bugs, you will find yourself in deep trouble while handling errors, crashes, and failures. Headless WordPress may be too much of a headache for immature developers and editors.
• The Non-developers, such as clients, authors/editors, and designers, will plausibly face some difficulties. Navigating and working in a shared environment takes some time. The conventional WordPress setup is easy to understand for both developers and non-developers. Specifically, if you’re creating client websites, it’s a superior approach.
• Opting to decouple comes amid some maintenance issues. The separate front and back ends mean you double the maintenance effort, double the servers and double the complexities if something goes unplanned. You also have to adjust the REST API connecting both frameworks.
• Decoupling WordPress doesn’t mean getting things 100% as most features like WYSIWYG editor and live preview won’t work. Other areas may be messy or require further improvement to fulfil your specific requirements.
• Transition to the headless platform can be expensive as it requires developing a customized front end. As mentioned above, maintenance will be more difficult, so you’ll need to hire professional developers who know how to deal with the issues.

Hybrid CMS - An Alternate Solution

To minimize efforts and chances of failure, you can opt for Hybrid CMSes that are relatively new and easy approaches. Headless CMSes were introduced to curb the overwhelming issues of distributing complex content across different platforms by allowing developers to use modern frameworks while sticking with their content management platform.Despite the earlier benefits, they’re difficult to set up and require an API to handle everything. Many other CMS features you’re used to, such as live previews, post permalinks, etc., don’t function. This is specifically the case with headless WordPress, as you’ll have no gateway left to preview posts or pages.This is where hybrid CMS joins the stage. Like WordPress, these platforms provide content management and website building utilities. Still, they allow you to choose which segment of your sites will become headless and work conventionally.

Image Courtesy: e-spirit.com

You can create a website as easily as WordPress while enjoying the perks of utilities like post previews and live editing. On the other hand, if you distribute your content over multiple platforms or want to integrate your web framework, you need to make a few clicks, and you are all done.You can even develop most of your website with built-in software tools and then use an API to link an application developed using another framework or language. This feature is also available in default WordPress using REST, but hybrid CMSes make this process a lot simpler for you.As far as WordPress is concerned, there’s no easy way to turn it into a hybrid CMS. You can emulate it to an extent by using extensions that can automatically distribute your content to other channels and connecting apps built-in to other frameworks with the help of REST API. But if you are gearing up to go headless, there’s no way to make live preview or other features available.If you’re not interested in coding your website, headless WordPress is not your cup of tea. Try another platform for multichannel publishing, such as PressRoom or a hybrid CMS.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, a decoupled CMS provides developers with an opportunity to program their site in their preferred languages, use many libraries and frameworks, use WordPress as an organizational or editorial utility, or publish the same content across multiple channels. If any of these utilities sound like your requirements, you should certainly give headless WordPress a try. It opens up new corridors for developers to innovate and provide the freedom to use the utilities they want without losing the robust content management system they are familiar with.If you are;

• Not developing a multichannel platform,
• Don’t have the resources to handle a complicated setup,
• Aren’t going to link WordPress to an external application or separate website
• Don’t want to create your site or work with different languages,

Then it would be best if you did not go for the headless approach.

There exists an ocean of information as well as misinformation regarding headless content management systems. The information available online is often correct but sometimes absurd. There's either not enough information, or it's too complicated for non-technical individuals to understand.Content Management Systems (CMS) have been around for quite a long time, but some remarkable revolutions have been made lately. Whether you should adopt the all-new "headless" approach to content management or stick with a mainstream, monolithic system? Let's explore.[lwptoc skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]

What is Headless CMS?

A headless CMS is a content management approach that provides an opportunity to author content. Still, instead of having your content coupled to an individual output such as web page rendering, it portrays your content as data over an API.The "head" relates to where your content ends, whereas the "body" is where your content is stored and authored. This idea sounds a little strange, but the purpose of a headless CMS isn't that you don't require ahead; it's about choosing certain heads (outputs) where you want to send your content.In the recent past, we have witnessed a trend in CMS as more scalable in making content available. These CMSes are usually termed as "Headless" or "API-first" CMSes. Some of them are portrayed as "Content infrastructure," "Content Hubs," or even "Content as a Service." However, on taking a closer look, they all appeared to have the usual database backend with a web-based user interface and content made available via an API.Headless CMS systems are still in the evolutionary phase intended to provide a better approach for content management with a highly flexible structure; content is treated as data. At the same time, editors work in a real-time collaboration ecosystem.

Headless CMS vs. Traditional CMS

Unlike headless CMS, a mainstream CMS is a platform that you need to install and manage on your own or install on a server offering managed services. Conventional CMSes are also known as "monolithic" because they possess all the operationality and considerations for how you want to work on a single platform. Conventional CMSes often provide a "What You See Is What You Get" content editing interface as they possess only one medium for presenting the content that is a web page.

The fundamental architectural differences between traditional and headless content management systems.

What about Decoupled CMSes?

As feedback to the description of headless CMSes, some of the conventional CMS providers have developed APIs on top of their platforms and term them as "decoupled." The decoupled approach ensures both website rendering options and the flexibility of the headless approach. However, the difference is that a model heavily impacts decoupled CMS APIs developed for a single website. This type of coupling restricts the number of contexts that your content can plausibly influence.

• Decoupled CMSes needs the addition of APIs on top to distribute content
• Headless CMSes are API-exclusive

How does a Headless CMS work?

A headless CMS is intended to:

1. Providing editors with an interface for managing content.
2. Providing that content using APIs for developers to run queries and develop apps with.

Most headless CMSes serve as a Software as a Service (SaaS), which means that your editors will be required to sign in to a web application, and the APIs are hosted in a cloud-based backend. Some headless CMSes allow you to host all the services on your server and database. This model provides you the opportunity to apply your scaling and operations.

Headless CMS Benefits

Faster editing experiences

Conventional CMS models have to spend resources on content editing and content rendering. A headless CMS has the edge over the conventional approach as it doesn't have to deal with the rendering aspect of the content. It spares both time and effort to focus on core aspects of your operations.

Manage content for more channels

Indeed headless content isn't bound to a single website interface to be showcased to diverse viewers across multiple mediums. You can utilize a headless CMS to handle content for multiple applications and websites. You can even control your internal content in the same place, and by doing so, you can fetch more value from it.

Developer flexibility

As headless content is distributed using APIs, developers can opt for their frontend approaches. For instance, if you'd prefer to work with Javascript instead of PHP, you can easily do so. You can also interchange portions of your stack or move from one platform to another without troubling the CMS.

Easier scaling

Headless lets you handle your content from a single source of truth, alter developer tools at any instant and enjoy the perks of sending your content to state-of-the-art cloud-based hosting and develop services like Vercel and Netlify.

Enhanced security

Headless content is separated from the presentation layer, and it's tough to attack the core. It makes your content more secure due to less exposure and vulnerability to attack.

Salient Features of Headless CMS

Websites & web apps

Headless CMSes are renowned choices in high-performing "Jamstack" sites and quickly align with static-site-generators like Gatsby, 11ty, and Next. They can also be utilized for web applications and support modern Javascript Frameworks such as React, Vue.js, Svelte, and Angular.

Also Read: Top 20 Headless CMS – How to Choose the Right One

Products & Services

A well-developed headless CMS is not a web-based content approach. You can manage content for any product or service, including voice assistants, digital kiosks, print, websites, and that all from the same place.

E-commerce sites

Some headless CMSes are scalable enough to serve as an eCommerce backend. You can have the leverage to integrate headless content with already existing eCommerce platforms and Warehouse Management Systems like Shopify.

Real-world headless CMS use cases

When it comes to multiple-channel digital marketing, a headless CMS is a perfect deal. Below are a few of the most interesting real-world use cases of headless CMS.

1. Downtown D.C. enhances tourist experience using digital signboards

The Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District found a lack of information about nearby restaurants, hotels, and attractions for pedestrians tourists.Instead of using traditional signboards, the organization deployed thirty interactive kiosk-powered digital display boards to provide news and alerts in multiple languages.Using a headless CMS as kiosk software, such digital signboards can be updated with new content in real-time for more relevant and consistent travel and leisure information.

2. Burger King deploys digital menu boards to 6,500+ stores

During a rebranding drive, Burger King installed digital menu boards in different U.S. restaurant locations in a short period of only four months.The fast-food giant can easily update and showcase menu items, deals, promotion campaigns, and pricing based on inventory and availability in real-time by headless technology. These dynamic digital menu boards attract people more efficiently, which results in the form of improved sales.

3. IKEA develops an augmented reality catalog mobile app

Using IKEAs innovative AR application, customers can use their smartphone's camera to capture an image of their room and select items from the furniture company's catalog to experience how they'll look in the respective area visually. IKEA's app and other similar AR apps allow customers to test products before actual purchase.

4. The Economist

The Economist is a notable example of a brand gearing up to penetrate almost every mainstream medium and touchpoint in the market, to only through a headless CMS. The global news and op-ed giant uses a headless CMS to publish content to multiple channels ranging from mobile apps, Snapchat, Social Media, Website to Oculus, and much more. In simple words, the brand is now available on mobile, social media, voice assistants, and virtual reality VR devices, with single headless CMS distributing the content.

How can you choose a suitable headless CMS?

There is a multitude of options that makes it challenging to navigate through the ocean of features. We think it's best to focus on a CMS that allows you to thrive and is highly adaptable and scalable as per your requirements. Below is the list of questions you need to ponder over to evaluate your choice effectively.

• Is it possible to develop the kinds of content structures you need to?
• Is it necessary to look after content hosting and maintenance all by yourself?
• Will your content be stored securely and privately?
• Would real-time editing and collaboration improve your workflows?
• Will your comprehensive text content be locked to HTML?
• Can you scale your content operations without spending extra money?
• What is the procedure for managing files and images?

Headless API Types

To better evaluate the value of a headless CMS, it's mandatory to know more about APIs. API stands for Application Programming Interface. In the given context, it means you get content in a way that is simpler to integrate with existing or new software utilities. Typically, you do this by sending the headless CMS a network request to an API end node. This network request is much more the same thing you do while visiting a webpage, but instead of a web page, you get a list of the backend of the content.While using this information to develop software using a programming approach with APIs, most developers prefer them because it gives them complete control of developing their applications. Some CMSes also allow you to change content using APIs. API is a broad area that goes beyond the domain of CMSes and the World Wide Web. Therefore, exploring the two frequently-used APIs is recommended when we talk about content management, namely REST and GraphQL.

What is REST API?

APIs can be more or less scalable when it comes to developing applications on top of them. In mainstream practice, Headless CMSes have offered REST APIs. They outline the content behind multiple URLs such as posts, authors, or images. Developers have to deal with multiple requests with the IDs of the variety of content types together. REST APIs can be effective for simple data structures, but this approach can be time-consuming if your content models are more complex. It requires more effort to change or mold these APIs for different purposes.

What is GraphQL?

Facebook introduced GraphQL as an alternative to the less flexible REST approach. It allows you to query the API with the fields and relationships you require for each event. This is exactly how you interact with the databases. It also makes it simple to introduce new fields and content types as your system grows horizontally.The reason to choose more flexible and scalable APIs is to eliminate the hurdles in reusing content across different channels. Why headless CMSes shouldn't store Rich Text as HTMLOrganizations and businesses are bound to increase their availability across multiple channels, whether websites, mobile applications, voice assistants, or even printed stuff. Multichannel presence pushes a new requirement regarding how content should be more managed and deliverable. Using a headless CMS and having your content offered using APIs is a good initiative. On the other hand, you also want that content perfectly structured to make it simple to use and consume.With this approach, you may find it confusing that nearly all modern headless CMSes store rich text content as HTML. It's excellent to offer this content to a web browser. Still, it's not a favorable multichannel storage format as distributing it to other formats can be difficult and time-consuming.Here the role of Portable Text specification comes into play as it offers rich text storage. Editors still enjoy the perks of having a familiar editing interface. On the other hand, developers get a more predictable format that is easier to distribute to different display destinations. It's highly customizable as you can:

• Insert customized content blocks.
• Select how editors can insert copy-pasted content.
• Control how the text will visually appear.
• Allow for content structures that support relationships between types, within and on top of rich text.

In simple words, it allows you to link some internal documents and then refrain from accidentally deleting other documents linked to that document and even enables you to view the relationships by sending simple queries.

Should You Go For The Headless CMS Trend?

The only question left to ask is whether you should choose a headless or a decoupled CMS? If your organization need a headless approach or not?The reality is, headless content management is trending due to a notable reason. It's a future-proof approach that can align with all emerging technologies. Instead of trying new channels and services like smartwatches and VR headsets with a conventional CMS, initially introduced for web-based mediums, a headless platform isn't limited to any medium, screen layout, or device type. As long as an API is available, the content can be reached anywhere.Despite this, some businesses resist opting for headless CMS.The headless model doesn't inspire Boris Kraft, CTO and Co-founder of Magnolia CMS.

“Headless CMSs deliver the freedom and flexibility of 'I can do everything I want at the price of 'I have to write, debug and maintain everything I need myself.'” In many cases, you will end up writing and maintaining the better part of a full-blown CMS, adding multiple layers of complexity to gain the advanced features that you’ve lost by rejecting a full CMS,” he stated. “A [traditional] CMS typically provides things like asset management, navigation, security, workflow, access control, caching, categorization, and link management, to name a few. These and many more are not immediately available with a headless CMS approach,” he continued.

He further went on to destroy the hype around headless CMSs by mentioning flaws related to security and personalization, insisting that modern enterprise platforms are capable enough to produce content for multiple mediums.

The Bottom Line - Know Your Goals, Then Decide Accordingly

Ultimately, the objective of headless content separated from the presentation layer is to future-proof a business's online presence. Having your content respond to API calls and be distributed around any platform or device provides high flexibility and freedom of approach. On the other hand, business owners like Boris feel their current conventional CMS can handle this job effectively. The headless comes amidst more complexities than solutions, and there's no reason to make a sudden shift.For now, many brands are retiring their conventional CMS to have their hands on a headless approach. It's your turn to evaluate your needs, outline your short-term and long-term objectives, and opt for the CMS that can best fulfill your content requirements.

Conclusion

Headless CMS gives editors a friendly interface for intelligent content management while providing APIs for developers to develop applications, making it simpler and faster to store, edit and publish content on multiple channels. They have more opportunities to offer than their traditional counterpart because they are API-exclusive and have nothing to do with content rendering.

There are many buzzwords related to data management; the most recurring ones are data lake and data warehouse. This blog covers the unique features, key differences, and contemporary trends related to these terminologies. Let’s discuss what they offer and how they work.

Data Lake

A data lake is a highly scalable storage space mainly occupied by large volumes of raw data in its primitive form until it is called for a process. Data in lake data comes from various sources that comprise a combination of clustered or organized formats and are stored with a flat architecture in different file sizes. For organizations that need to collect and store a lot of data but do not find it necessary to process and analyze it instantaneously, a data lake serves as an effective repository that provides large storage spaces quickly without any need for data being transformed.

Data Warehouse

Traditional data warehouses collect and manage data for further usage in a more structured ecosystem. It performs data to information transition and provides meaningful business insights. Businesses that use data warehouses learn and analyze from their data to perform data-driven management and operational decisions.

Ref: N-ix

Also Read: ETL Pipeline and Data Pipeline – How to create an ETL Process

Differences Between Data Lake & Data Warehouse

Due to the more flexible and scalable nature, data lakes are usually considered complementary solutions to data warehouses. But both technologies have their unique features and limitations.Below are the key differences between a data lake and a data warehouse.

Layout

Raw data is data that waits to be processed for further usage. The main difference between data lakes and data warehouses is their ability to deal with raw or processed data. Data lakes primarily store raw and unprocessed data. On the other hand, data warehouses store processed and refined data.Because of this notable difference, data lakes require a much larger storage capacity than data warehouses. Secondly, raw & unprocessed data is much elastic and can be quickly called for an analysis of any kind, making it ideal for machine learning.The ability to store the raw data comes with the curse of data swamps due to the lack of appropriate quality check measures active onboard. To address this problem, data warehouses, by storing only processed and useful data save too much storage space by eliminating the portion of data that can be considered junk.

Purpose

The purpose of independent and disconnected data pieces in a data lake is not determined. Raw data is being pushed into a data lake, sometimes with predetermined future use and sometimes to store for the sake of nothing. This unfiltered data inflow makes data lakes less organized than its opponent.Since data warehouses only store processed data, all of the data in a data warehouse has been stored for a determined purpose and use within the organization. This means that storage space is not wasted on unidentified or useless data junk.

Users

Data lakes are often difficult to navigate by immature staff with less or no experience dealing with unprocessed data. Raw, unstructured data usually demands the role of a data scientist and specialized tools to transform and translate it for a useful business purpose.Processed data can be represented through bar diagrams, graphs, spreadsheets, tables, etc. This makes it understandable by most employees at a company. As we have discussed earlier, this processed data is handled by data warehouses.

Accessibility

Accessibility directly depends on how easy it is to use and access the whole data repository, not the data within. Data in Data lake architecture is stored unstructured and unconnected, which makes Data Lake easier to access. Secondly, any changes made to the data can be done instantaneously since data lakes have very few limitations and no data connections. But this environment can lead to issues like data redundancy.To overcome the issue of data redundancy, data warehouses are designed to be more structured, protected, and secure. But the strictness of structure and management controls makes data warehouses difficult and costly to manipulate as every intended change without a structured & directional mechanism is considered a violation or breach of management measures and demands expertise to manipulate.

Contemporary & Future Trends

Instead of serving as a single source of the data, the data lake provides an adaptable ecosystem that holds a variety of data, with the ability to evolve in accordance with the open access data libraries. With scalability and flexibility preferred over management and control, the data lake is made to ensure cloud storage’s core values and capabilities.As data consumers refine and analyze data, the patterns and insights they find can be pushed back into the data lake, so they are readily available to other data consumers, thus creating an ocean of data and data analytics that has never been experienced before.

This critical feedback loop makes the data lake better and easy to utilize by data consumers.Data Architecture once only portrays an ideal data warehouse, but now the cloud opens up new windows for short-lived data warehousing. A database or visualization tool is not mandatory with methodologies that can call or retrieve data from Data Lake directly.Both technologies are unique in offering their services as Data Lake is more suitable for implementing business intelligence, and data warehouse houses more managed and structured data. The critical question is not what to use but how to extract meaning and insights from data to drive a directed and fruitful business process. As data volume increases with the every day passing, so is the complexity of dealing with it, whether it stores in a lake or a warehouse.

Conclusion

The data warehouse stands as a logical representation of refined and filtered data that almost all employees in a business can use to make decisions at different levels. Without a data warehouse, decision-makers have to make a blind and slow decision that results in a business model, more vulnerable to error and mistakes.But as the amount of structured and unstructured data increases, businesses need to deploy a data lake to entertain a vast ocean of data. The contents and layout of the data lake can be determined by the nature and size of data that cannot be behold using the mainstream data warehouse.

Using both technologies, the organizations create a Business Intelligence ecosystem, a more logical model that is a data warehouse to process and manage the data with several other data visualization tools and technologies, including a data lake in parallel to increase storage scalability. In this scenario, the data lake and the conventional data warehouse work side by side to deliver fruitful results and work together as components of the larger, integrated, and more connected BI ecosystem, which in turn, add value to the data stock by delivering insights and enabling experts to make precise decisions & predictions, previously impossible.

The Data Science Hierarchy of Needs can be well explained by Data Science Pyramid that focuses on the firm data foundation mandatory to attain good data science stability. The pyramid starts with the raw data itself, which may come from many sources, in different formats, and massive amounts. Data Engineers add the context and layout to turn this data into information. Data Management and Governance ensure coordination and quality before this data reaches the final phase. Reporting and Business Intelligence are equally important as they provide a foundation for insight gathering, where information is collected, categorized, and processed to provide analytical outcomes. Finally, Data Science showcases the summit of data into action, depending upon all the foundational phases while also providing a fresh set of robust statistical methodologies.

The data science pyramid is not necessarily a linear approach, meaning that an organization does not need to attain perfection in each phase before transitioning to the next. Instead, a certain level of expertise is required in each phase before moving ahead, and each consecutive transition to the advanced level informs improvements to previous ones. For instance, an organization with a confident grasp on its Data Management and Governance advance towards Reporting and BI, only to figure out different areas for improving data quality. It is essential to know that the data science pyramid depends on the initial value potential. If a company has not already developed a firm data foundation, it is not rational to jump levels in most cases. Instead, organizations would likely enrich more initial value by improving their fundamental and foundational basis before advancing towards data science maturity. The performance of a statistical model directly depends on the value and purity of information it is trained on. Other primary drivers like significant sources, infrastructure, governance, and dashboards come into frame.

Perspectives in Data Science

To utilize your data completely, you have to consider two different perspectives while looking at and handling any data. First of all, there are two perspectives people hold while looking at the data. Either they can see from the perspective of a developer, data scientist, or Machine Learning Engineer, or they may see it from the lens of a business owner. All of these perspectives and viewpoints are very equally critical in deriving benefits from data. Most engineers look at it from the bottom up. It means they focus on how the data will be collected, stored, accessed, and then analyzed to extract actionable insights and patterns. They primarily focus on the engineering aspect of data science to fetch insight and valuable patterns.

Also Read: 8 Applications of Data Clustering Algorithms

On the other hand, an enterprise owner or business person shows interest in the profits they are likely to gain from the data. They are more interested in the profits they can drive from the data. The best approach to implement a data science pyramid is to merge both perspectives. You need to know how the data is collected, the data roadmap, and the different types of data analytic methodologies to fetch valuable and profitable insight and then how to use these insights to influence your decision-making process and boost profits.

The Data Science Pyramid of Needs

Let’s discuss the hierarchy of needs needed to add value, context, and perspective to the raw data and transform it into valuable insights.

1. Data Acquisition

Data Acquisition focuses on many raw data sources, ranging from various traditional data sources, including ERP systems, Legacy Data Stores, and Operational Systems, to more dynamic and advanced runtime sources such as social media platforms and natural language. Data science has provided immense opportunities and possibilities in data acquisition, as previously seemingly absurd data types can now be used for different purposes using advanced methodologies.

2. Data Engineering

Data Engineering possesses all the activities linked with processing, moving, and storing data. Data Engineering can range from conventional tool-based ETL to custom-built data pipelines, which develop the underlying infrastructure through which data flows and is controlled. It is crucial as it provides the tools and methodologies necessary for the ETL workflows that enable data to move efficiently for advanced processes further up the pyramid.

3. Data Management and Governance

It ensures that intense scrutiny and check mechanisms are being placed on the meta-attributes of data such as data types, cardinality, and value distribution. This phase controls the various activities linked with improving the quality and usability of data by cleaning it and adding useable features. Data Management is a vital middle component because of the algorithms that enable AI and Machine Learning to learn and analyze data.  Therefore, data must be organized, free from errors, up-to-date, and useable.

4. Reporting and Business Intelligence

It includes the tools and methodologies linked with making information readily available to organizations for the analytical processes. It focuses on showcasing information compellingly and understandably to use various decision-making processes; and possesses different data and OLAP data schemas. Reporting and BI add value because it effectively represents your data science outcomes and results to the rest of the organization and non-technical department in the most understandable way possible.  It serves as a medium that connects data science to the primary decision-makers who can then make rational and data-driven decisions to boost the business’s business’s overall performance and profit margin.

5. Data Science

Data Science can be instrumental at the intersection of advanced mathematics, statistics, computer science, and domain expertise. It is an interdisciplinary approach to creating diagnostic, predictive, or contextual insights from massive, complex, and exotic data sources using approved, attentive, and reproducible methodologies.

END WORDS

The overall concept of the pyramid lies in the question of why and how we use data. To turn data into information, then into insight, you need to build massive IT systems to turn raw and seemingly useless and scattered data into organized information to derive actionable insights. Every step you go up the pyramid, you stream or improve some portion of the data, information, or insight process. For instance, data infrastructure & engineering is intended to transform the raw information into something with more context & organization onwards.  The transition from Reporting & BI to Data Science represents the last step of this automation drive.

Also Read: A Basic Guide on Cross-Entropy in Machine Learning

Keep in mind, in the end, if the foundation is weak and based on noisy, incomplete, and unorganized data, the solution will not be optimized. The outcomes could be downright devastating. Instead of jumping steps or avoiding the mandatory internal challenges, ensure the foundation is as strong as possible. By doing so, even if you don’t attain the highest level of the data pyramid, your business will still enjoy the perks of the processed data and analytics for more satisfactory solutions.

Throughout history, perspective in the data domain has experienced multiple transformations. Due to the recent advances made in machine learning, the data management processes of organizations have started to reform like never before. The exponential growth of available and accessible data demands the modern management and handling of immense data assets. The end-to-end routes of data architecture are known as pipelines. Every pipeline possesses one or more sources and target systems to access and manipulate the available data.

In these pipelines, data goes through various stages, including transformation, validation, normalization, etc. People often confuse the ETL Pipeline with Data Pipeline.This blog post is intended to answer two questions.

• What is the difference between the ETL Pipeline with Data Pipeline?
• How to make an ETL Pipeline?

ETL Pipeline

Data ETL Pipelines are architectures that involve certain processes, including the extraction of data from a source, its transformation, and then loading it into the target destination for different purposes like machine learning, statistical modeling, extracting insights, etc. The said target destination could be a data warehouse, data mart, or database.

ETL stands for Extraction, Transformation, and Loading. As the title suggests, the ETL process involves:

• Data integration
• Data warehousing
• Data Transformation

The extraction involves the fetching up of data from different heterogeneous sources. For instance, business systems, applications, sensors, and databanks. The next stage is data transformation that involves converting into a defined and improved format to use by many applications. Last but not the least, the accessible and improvised form of data finally loads into a target destination. The primary objective of building an ETL Pipeline is to employ the right data, make it available for reporting, and store it for instant and handy access. An ETL tool assists businesses and developers to spare time and effort to focus on core business processes. There exists a variety of strategies to build ETL pipelines depending on a businesses’ unique requirements.

ETL Pipeline - Use Case

There are a variety of scenarios where ETL pipelines can be used to deliver faster, superior-quality decisions. Data ETL pipelines are implemented to centralize all data sources and allow businesses to have a consolidated data version. Consider the Customer Resource Management (CRM) department that uses an ETL pipeline to extract customers’ data from multiple touchpoints during the purchase process. It can also allow the department to develop comprehensive dashboards that can serve as a single source containing customer information from different sources. Similarly, it often becomes essential for the companies to internally transit and transforms data between multiple data shelves. For instance, if data is stored in different intelligence systems, it becomes difficult for a business user to drive clear insights and make rational decisions.

Data Pipeline

A data pipeline is an architecture that involves moving data from the source to the target destination. These steps involve copying and loading data from an onsite location into the cloud or merging it with other data sources. The primary objective of a data pipeline is to make sure that all this transition process is applied consistently to all available data.

If handled properly, a data pipeline allows businesses to access consistent and well-organized data for further processing. By practicing data transfer and transformation, data engineers will fetch information from various sources rationally.

Data Pipeline - Use Case

Data pipelines are helpful for accurately extracting and driving useful data insights. The methodology works well for businesses or companies that store and depend on multiple, huge chunks of data sources, perform real-time data analysis, and have their data stored on the cloud. For instance, data pipeline tools and methodologies perform predictive analysis to filter the most probable future trends from the least probable ones. A production department can perform predictive analytics to determine if the raw material is likely to run out. It could also allow making forecasts about the possible delays in a supply line. In this way, these insights can help the production department handle its operations free from any resistance or errors.

Difference between ETL Pipelines and Data Pipelines

Although ETL and data pipelines are closely related concepts, they have multiple differences; however, people often use the two terms interchangeably. Data pipelines and ETL pipelines are both designated to shift data from one source to another; the main difference is the application for which the pipeline is designed, a detail of which is discussed in the following article.

• The difference of terminology between ETL pipeline & data pipeline

ETL pipeline possesses a series of mechanisms that fetch data from a source, transform it, and load it into the target destination. Whereas a data pipeline is a kind of broader terminology with ETL pipeline as its subset. It lacks the transformation phase and only includes transferring data from a source to the target destination.

• Purpose of ETL pipeline VS data pipeline

In a simpler means, a data pipeline is intended to transfer data from sources, such as business processes, applications, and sensors, etc., into a data warehouse to run intelligent and analytical processes. On the other hand, ETL pipeline, as the name suggests, is a specific kind of data pipeline in which data is extracted, transformed, and then loaded into a target destination. After extracting data from the source, the critical step is to adjust this data into a designated data model that’s designed following the specific business intelligence requirements. This adjustment includes accumulation, cleaning, and transformation of the data. In the end, the resulting data is then loaded into the target system.

• Differences in how ETL and data pipeline run

An ETL pipeline operates to fetch data in batches, which moves a certain amount of data to the target system. These batches can be organized in such a way as to run at a specific time daily when incase of low system traffic. On the other hand, a data pipeline doesn’t stockpile from the source and can be deployed as a real-time process by ensuring every event must be handled as soon it happens instead of batches. For instance, to transfer data coming from an air traffic control (ATC) system. Moreover, the data pipeline doesn’t require adjusting data before loading it into a database or a data warehouse. This data can be loaded into any destination system, such as the Amazon Web Services bucket.

How to Build an ETL Process

When you build an ETL infrastructure, you must first gather and combine data from many sources. Then you are required to carefully outline the strategy and test to ensure error-free transfer of data. This is a lengthy and complex process.

Let’s discuss in detail how.

Building an ETL Pipeline for Batch Processing

As discussed earlier in an ETL pipeline, you handle data in batches from source databases to a target destination (a data lake or warehouse). It’s a complicated task to build an enterprise ETL architecture from scratch. Data engineers usually use ETL tools such as Stitch or Blendo, each serving as a simplifier and automating much of your tasks.To develop an ETL pipeline using batch processing, you are required to:

• Create a dataset of the primary key (Unique Variable)

Create a dataset that possesses the set of permitted variables and values your data may contain. For instance, in air traffic control data, specify the flight numbers or flight designator allowed.

• Extract data from multiple sources

The foundations of successful ETL are based on the correct extraction of data. Fetch data from various sources, such as Apps Data, DBMSm RDBMS, XML, CSV files, and transform it into a single format for mutual processing as per standards.

• Validate data

Filter the data with values in the expected ranges from the rest. For instance, if you only want cars record from the last decade, reject any older than ten years. Analyze abandoned records on an ongoing basis, outline issues, adjust the source data, and enhance the extraction process to resolve the issues that can lead to future batches.

• Transform data

Eliminate duplicate data, apply filters ensuring business rules, ensure data integrity (to refrain from losing any data), and create aggregates as necessary. To do so, you need to implement numerous functions to automate the transformation of data.

• Stage data

You cannot typically load transformed data directly into the target destination. Instead, data is first injected into a staging database, making it easier to reverse any change if something goes wrong. This is where you can produce audit reports for regulatory purposes and perform diagnoses to repair any problem.

• Publish to your target system

While loading data to the target database, some data warehouses overwrite existing information upon loading a new batch. These overwrites may occur daily, weekly, or monthly. In other cases, the ETL process can add new data without overwriting the old one, assigning a time flag to indicate it is updated or recent. This practice needs to be handled carefully to secure the data warehouse from overflowing due to disk space.

2. Building an ETL Pipeline for Stream Processing

Modern practices involve data-time processing, such as web analytics data from a large e-commerce website. As discussed earlier, you cannot extract and transform data in large batches, but instead, it requires performing ETL on data streams. As soon as client applications write data to the data source, you must clean and transform it while transitioning between source and destination. Different stream processing tools are available, including Apache Samza, Apache Storm, and Apache Kafka. The illustration below showcases an ETL pipeline based on Kafka (S3 Sink Connector to stream the data to Amazon S3).

(Source - Confluent)

To create a stream processing ETL pipeline using Apache Kafka, you are required to:

• Extract data into Kafka Topics

Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is an application programming interface (API) for Java's programming language. Here, the JDBC connector attracts each source table row and feeds it into a key/value pair into a Kafka topic as message feeds. Kafka’s organized message feeds into categories called topics. Each topic has a title that is unique across the entire Kafka cluster. Applications interested in the state of this table read from this topic. As client applications add rows to the source table, Kafka automatically updates them as new messages to the Kafka topic, allowing a real-time data stream.

• Pull data from Kafka topics

The ETL application fetches messages from the Kafka topic in Avro records, creates an Avro schema file, and deserializes them. Deserialization does the opposite of serialization by converting bytes of arrays into the desired data type. Then it produces KStream objects from the messages.

• Transform data in KStream objects

Using the Kafka Streams API, the stream processor receives a single record, processes it, and generates one or more output records for downstream process handlers. These process handlers can transform one message, filter them as per regulations, and perform different operations on many messages.

• Load data to other systems

The ETL application still possesses the enriched data and now requires to stream it into destination systems, such as a data warehouse or data lake. Amazon S3 or Amazon Simple Storage Service is a service provided by Amazon Web Services that allows object storage through a web service interface. In the diagram above, the S3 Sink Connector is used to stream the data to Amazon S3. PS: One can also integrate with other systems, such as a Redshift data warehouse using Amazon Kinesis Data Firehouse, integrated with Amazon S3, Amazon, and Amazon Elasticsearch Service. Now you know how to perform ETL processes the conventional way (Batch Process) and streaming data.

Conclusion

As you’ve seen, although used interchangeably, ETL and data Pipelines are two different architectures. While the ETL process involves data extraction, transformation, and loading, the data pipeline doesn’t necessarily include data transformation. Shifting data from source to target system enables various operators to query more systematically and correctly than possible instead of dealing with complex, diverse, and raw source data. A well-structured data pipeline and ETL pipeline improve the efficiency of data management and enable data managers to easily make instant iterations to fulfill the evolving data requirements of the business.