Best Practices for Anthology Integrations: an AT25 Guide
Most colleges and universities don’t run their entire campus on a single vendor’s suite. Even when Anthology Student is the SIS of choice, institutions often use Salesforce or Slate for CRM, Canvas or Brightspace for LMS, and external tools like Zoom, AWS, or Workday to round out their technology stack.
This creates a complex ecosystem of systems that need to share data reliably and securely. Students expect real-time updates across portals. Staff need clean, unified data for advising, admissions, and retention tracking. And leadership wants modern analytics without waiting for nightly batch jobs.
But despite these clear needs, less than a third of U.S. institutions have adopted modern integration platforms (iPaaS) to connect their systems. Many still rely on home-grown scripts, legacy ETLs, or painful vendor hours that slow down SaaS adoption and increase technical debt.
The good news? Anthology Student’s APIs—paired with a higher ed-focused iPaaS and expert services—make it possible to build scalable, real-time integrations that unlock the full potential of your campus systems.
Here’s how to do it right in 2025.
Eight Best Practices for Anthology Integrations in 2025
#1 Start with an Outcome-Driven Data Strategy
Focus first on what business outcomes you want to drive—faster admissions decisions, better student retention alerts, improved financial reporting—and then define the specific data objects that need to be integrated to achieve those outcomes. Lingk’s Data Integrator Agent (launching soon) will help automate the discovery of Anthology APIs and recommended objects.
#2 Use an iPaaS Built for Higher Ed
Generic integration platforms can struggle with the unique data models, term structures, and compliance needs of higher education. An iPaaS built for higher ed—with prebuilt connectors, higher ed-specific logic, and compliance-aware workflows—helps schools cut integration timelines in half. Lingk’s iPaaS+ platform does exactly that.
#3 Choose a Platform That Also Offers Expert Services
Even the best integration platforms require time, expertise, and context to get things running smoothly. Rather than staffing up internally or juggling multiple vendors, consider an integration platform provider that also offers professional services to manage the integrations for you.
At Lingk, we combine our higher ed-focused iPaaS with a team of Anthology integration specialists who can lead your project from discovery through go-live—or handle it entirely as a managed service. This approach allows institutions to move faster, reduce IT burden, and still retain flexibility to take over ongoing operations in the future if desired.
#4 Prioritize Near Real-Time Where It Matters
Don’t settle for nightly batch processes when real-time matters. Use event-driven integrations or API polling for critical records like enrollments, grades, and holds, while reserving scheduled jobs for archival data that doesn’t need constant updates.
#5 Lock Down Security and Authentication
Anthology’s API security requires multiple steps—Azure AD provisioning, staff-to-user mapping, and app keys. Automate token handling, encrypt sensitive fields in transit, and enforce role-based access so your integrations are secure by design.
#6 Automate Testing and Monitoring
Use automated test harnesses and monitoring dashboards to validate integrations before and after go-live. Send real-time alerts when errors happen—whether it’s a failed course sync or an enrollment that didn’t make it to your CRM—so your teams can respond quickly.
#7 Extend Anthology's Data Model to Your Ecosystem
Anthology’s canonical data model is a solid foundation for internal systems, but it must be extended to external apps like Salesforce and Canvas. Use your integration layer (not your SIS or LMS) to map and translate fields—for example, reconciling Canvas course IDs with Anthology’s Section IDs—keeping each system clean and maintainable.
#8 Build a Governance and Enablement Plan
Integrations aren’t fire-and-forget. To keep your data ecosystem healthy and adaptable, institutions need to document your data contracts, API lifecycles, and mapping logic. This means clearly defining your data contracts—what each system expects and delivers—tracking API versions and lifecycles to avoid outages, and maintaining an evolving library of data mappings and transformations as your processes change. Beyond the technical side, it also means empowering your analysts and functional teams to make low-code updates to integrations, so they aren’t waiting on IT every time a new field or process is introduced.
Lingk’s Data Cloud simplifies this entire landscape. Built as a zero-copy metadata management solution, it gives institutions a way to catalog and manage data flows across Anthology Student, Salesforce, Canvas, Zoom, and beyond—without duplicating data across systems. With the Data Cloud, your team can define data lineage, ownership, and transformation logic right in the platform, making it easier to troubleshoot, adapt, and optimize integrations over time.
With Lingk’s iPaaS+ platform and Data Cloud working together, integrations don’t just move data from point A to point B—they create a governed, trustworthy, and future-ready data ecosystem that your institution can rely on.
Proven Results: How ANU Achieved Real-Time Anthology Integrations
At last year’s Anthology Together 2024 event, American National University (ANU) presented how they unified Anthology Student, Salesforce, Canvas, and Zoom—all without writing custom code.
With Lingk’s integration platform and services, ANU built:
Real-time CRM-to-SIS admissions sync, reducing duplicate records by 96%
Automatic course and enrollment updates flowing to Canvas
Zoom attendance data feeding back into Anthology for early alerts
The first 30+ integrations went live in just eight weeks, well ahead of their original project timeline.
This wasn’t a theoretical discussion. It was a live success story from an institution navigating the same integration challenges many schools face today.
Anthology Integration Checklist
Use this checklist to benchmark your readiness:
Are your business outcomes and data needs clearly defined?
Do you have an iPaaS built for higher ed?
Is your Anthology API access secured and automated?
Are your integrations designed for near real-time where needed?
Do you have automated testing and proactive monitoring?
Are you paying for delivered outcomes, not just hours?
Is there a governance and enablement plan in place?
If the answer is "no" to any of these, there’s room to streamline your integrations—and your student experience.
Why Lingk? An Integration Platform and Data Management Approach for Higher Ed
Lingk offers more than just an iPaaS. We deliver:
Prebuilt higher ed connectors and recipes for Anthology Student, Salesforce, Canvas, and more
Data Integrator Agents that automate API discovery, mapping, and design generation
Managed integration services from experts who know Anthology’s quirks and higher ed’s realities
Data management features to cleanse, standardize, and synchronize your records across systems—ensuring you don’t just move data, you make it better
Flexible engagement options: fully managed, project-based, or hand-off ready
With Lingk, you’re not just wiring systems together. You’re building a scalable, secure data foundation for the future.
Ready to Build a Future-Ready Integration Strategy?
Anthology Student is a critical part of your student data ecosystem—but it shouldn’t be a silo. With the right integration strategy, platform, and expertise, your CRM, LMS, financial systems, and analytics platforms can work together seamlessly.
Integration doesn’t have to be the hardest part of your Anthology roadmap. It can be the fastest way to unlock the full value of your systems and improve the student experience.
Lingk brings integration and data management together in a single platform—helping institutions streamline Anthology integration and institutional operations with trusted, AI-ready data.
