You can use 4theFile to add value to your existing application, without any new code. If integration doesn't require any code, is it still integration? Hard to say. But it's kinda cool anyway.
Your user asks: "Can I post an email message in the Notes field of Application Z?"
Your old answer: "Well, um, you might be able to, um..." (because you know that they're going to have problems with formatting, and with attachments, and with forwarded messages, and they're going to lose or mangle the headers, etc.)
Your new answer: "Yes. Forward your email to submit@4thefile.com. You'll get back a URL; just paste it into the Notes field."
If you're a developer or webmaster and willing to get your hands a little dirty, you can take it one step further and provide tighter integration and better security by providing a "Collection Callback Link" for your Collection. This is a link to your site that's included in the email sent to the submitter by 4theFile, along with your explanation of what the link does. 4theFile automatically appends the Resource and Collection keys and Tags to the URL. When the user clicks on the callback link, you can ask them to log in and authenticate themseves and authorize use of the 4theFile Resource in your application.
Implement the Callback Link like this:The 4theFile API is a REST-style API that uses simple standard technologies: HTTP requests with Basic auth, and XML or JSON response content. The API is designed primarily to allow developers and maintainers of web applications to easily provide an email interface to their applications and integrate the list of submitted emails into their application's interface -- without all the hassles involved in running an email server and parsing complex multi-part email messages, possibly with inline images, html, and attachments. 4theFile takes care of all the messy stuff for you.
For more information, view the 4theFile API Docs on the support wiki:
The API is simple to use, but it allows a much greater degree of control over your Collection than simply linking to a shareable Collection URL. By setting your Collection privacy to "private" and using the API to fetch the Collection list from within an access-controlled page in your application, you can verify that the users viewing the list are authenticated in your application and authorized to view the list.