System Design Lab

Core · One system owns each piece of data. Everything else copies.

Source of truth

When the CRM, a Google Sheet and an email tool all edit the same customer and sync both ways, they drift. Nobody knows which phone number is right, and sync loops quietly burn tasks.

Wiring up the simulator…

Try this

Run each experiment in the simulator above, then tick it off.

Key ideas

Name an owner per field

Phone and plan live in the CRM. Open rates live in the email tool. Write it down before you build.

Sync flows one way

Owner to copies. A copy never writes back directly; it asks the owner to change.

Beware the loop

Two-way syncs fire on their own updates: A updates B, B's “updated” trigger updates A, and round it goes. Every hop is a task.

In your Pabbly workflows

Sketch the client's data map first: which app owns contacts, deals, invoices. Make every workflow flow from the owner outward. If a two-way sync is unavoidable, filter out updates made by your own integration user, or compare values and stop when nothing actually changed.

Check yourself

0/2

Get every question right to mark this lab done. Wrong answers let you try again.

Q1. A sheet and a CRM sync both ways. Two staff edit the same contact a second apart. Likely outcome?

Q2. Best fix for an update loop between two apps?

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