> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.withampersand.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Concepts

## Integration

An **integration** defines how your application will interact with a third party SaaS tool. You will have a single integration for all of your customers that are connecting your application with a particular SaaS product. For example, you might have an integration called `mySalesforceIntegration`. Salesforce is the **provider** that we are integrating with.

You create an integration by defining it in a [manifest file](/manifest-reference) and then deploying it using the `amp` CLI. (See [CLI Overview](/cli/overview)).

An **installation** is specific to a single customer that sets up one of your integrations to connect with their SaaS instance. For example, `mySalesforceIntegration` might have 30 installations - one for each of your customers that have connected their Salesforce instance with your application.

## Installation

An installation is an instance of an integration, for a particular customer. It is created:

* when a customer connects their SaaS instance in an [embeddable UI component](/embeddable-ui-components)
* or when you make an API call to the [CreateInstallation](/reference/installation/create-a-new-installation) endpoint.

An installation captures the following information:

* the credentials for connecting to the customer's SaaS instance. (Ampersand supports OAuth, Basic Auth, and API Key based authentication.) We call this the **connection**.
* a customer's preference for which objects and fields they want your application to read or write, and fields they've mapped. We call this the **config**.

***

For other terminology, refer to [Terminology](/terminology).