How Univativ Connected SAP, Salesforce, and 4 Other Systems into One Unified Workflow

Germany's leading student placement company ran SAP, Salesforce, Datev, LinkedIn, Xing, and Indeed as separate silos. easy.bi built a Universal Business Connector on AWS that bridges all six systems - eliminating manual data entry and enabling real-time cross-platform workflows.

Enterprise systems integrated

Real-time

Cross-platform data sync

Serverless

AWS-native architecture

Manual data re-entry required

Univativ Management GmbH project showcase

The Challenge: Six Systems, Zero Communication

Univativ is Germany's leading placement company for students and young academics, connecting talent with enterprise employers across the DACH region. Their operations depend on six major platforms: SAP for finance, Salesforce for client relationships, Datev for accounting, LinkedIn and Xing for candidate sourcing, and Indeed for job postings. Each system does its job well. None of them talk to each other.

The consequences of this fragmentation hit every department, every day. When a recruiter sources a candidate on LinkedIn, they manually re-enter the profile into Salesforce. When a placement is confirmed, someone copies the contract data from Salesforce into SAP. When payroll runs, the finance team reconciles Datev entries against SAP records by hand. Every handoff is a chance for errors, delays, and lost information.

Univativ's operations team estimated that 30% of their administrative time went to data re-entry across systems. Worse, because each system contained slightly different versions of the same data, no one could fully trust any single source. Reports pulled from SAP didn't match Salesforce. Salesforce didn't match Datev. Decision-makers worked with conflicting numbers.

Univativ needed a connector - a central integration layer that could move data between all six platforms automatically, in real time, without requiring anyone to copy-paste between browser tabs.

“We had consultants propose 18-month integration projects. easy.bi had SAP and Salesforce connected in the first quarter. We saw ROI before the big firms would have finished requirements gathering.”

Why Univativ Chose easy.bi

Enterprise integration projects have a reputation for taking years and delivering disappointment. Univativ had seen proposals from large consulting firms that involved 18-month timelines and seven-figure budgets - with no guarantee the result would handle the real-world complexity of their data flows. easy.bi proposed a different model: an event-driven architecture on AWS that could be built incrementally, with the first two system integrations live within the first quarter.

The technical fit was strong. easy.bi's team had hands-on experience with every system in Univativ's stack - Symfony, VueJS, and Svelte for web applications; AWS Lambda, Event Bus, and Step Functions for serverless integration; and the API ecosystems of SAP, Salesforce, and LinkedIn. No subcontractors. No learning curve. One team that could build the entire connector.

“Our recruiters used to spend a third of their day copying data between systems. Now they spend it with candidates and clients. The connector didn't just save time - it changed what our team focuses on.”

The Approach: Event-Driven Integration on AWS

The Universal Business Connector was designed as an event-driven system on AWS. When data changes in one system - a new candidate in Salesforce, an approved invoice in SAP, a posted job on Indeed - an event fires. The connector picks it up, transforms the data, and pushes it to every system that needs it. No scheduled batch jobs. No overnight syncs. Real-time data flow.

AWS Lambda for stateless processing. Each integration is a Lambda function - stateless, independently deployable, and auto-scaling. When Salesforce sends a webhook, a Lambda function transforms the data and forwards it to SAP. When Indeed publishes a job listing, another Lambda function syncs it to LinkedIn and Xing simultaneously. No servers to manage. No capacity planning. Costs scale with actual usage.

AWS Event Bus and Step Functions for orchestration. Complex workflows - like onboarding a new placement that touches Salesforce, SAP, Datev, and Microsoft 365 - are orchestrated through AWS Step Functions. Each step handles one system, with built-in retry logic and error handling. If SAP is temporarily unavailable, the workflow pauses and retries automatically instead of failing silently.

New websites on Svelte Kit. Alongside the connector, easy.bi built Univativ's public-facing websites using Svelte and Svelte Kit, backed by the same data layer. Job advertisements, project listings, and application forms pull directly from the connector - ensuring that what candidates see on the website matches what recruiters see in Salesforce. One source of truth, multiple interfaces.

Incremental delivery. Rather than building all six integrations before launching, the team delivered SAP-Salesforce connectivity first, then added Datev, then the job platforms. Each integration was tested and live before the next one started. Univativ saw value from month one, not quarter four.

“For the first time, our SAP reports match our Salesforce data. That sounds basic, but when you've been reconciling conflicting numbers for years, having one source of truth changes how you make decisions.”

The Results: Data Flows, People Don't Have To

The Universal Business Connector eliminated manual data entry between six enterprise systems. Recruiters source candidates on LinkedIn and the data appears in Salesforce automatically. Placements confirmed in Salesforce generate the correct entries in SAP and Datev without human intervention. Job postings push to Indeed, LinkedIn, and Xing simultaneously from a single input.

Administrative time previously spent on data re-entry dropped significantly. More importantly, data accuracy improved across all systems because information enters once and propagates automatically. Reports from SAP now match Salesforce. Finance reconciliation against Datev is consistent. For the first time, Univativ's management team works from one version of the truth.

The event-driven architecture on AWS means the connector scales with Univativ's growth without infrastructure changes. Adding a seventh system - or a seventieth - follows the same pattern: build an adapter, connect to the event bus, deploy. The platform is a foundation, not a ceiling.