In typical scenario ecommerce shopping cart is transformed into Sales Order Processing Invoice with Customer deposit.
Assuming that you are controlling ecommerce programming side and has an option to expose its database via ODBC connection or even export into coma or tab delimited text file, we recommend you evaluate Integration Manager feasibility. There are definitely various ecommerce products for GP, coming from ISV partner channel, but maybe they are not needed in your case and standard modules (which are always preferred) could do the job and customization is not required. Let’s review IM approach:
1. License. You will need the license for IM distribution, as SOP and Inventory control modules are in Distribution set
2. Connectors. Currently there are two popular types. First one is preferred, it is eConnect. This technology is based on SQL Stored procedures and should provide maximal performance. It looks like in version 2010/11.0 and 10.0 (we do not recommend you to run into ecommerce integration project on earlier version) SOP Return is not automated in eConnect IM connector. Second is OLE Server traditional connector, which was introduced in 20th century. OLE Server requires GP user workstation to be running on the computer with all the Forms closed. OLE Server hides the client interface and opens required forms to enter and validate each field. Apparently OLE Server is a way slower, comparing to eConnect, however here we have Return logic, and as number of returns is typically fraction of your sales volume, it is OK to use OLE Server for Returns
3. Master-Slave theory. You should decide if in your existing Shopping Cart you are OK to control such terms as Inventory Items, Price (for each customer, customer class, items on sale). Popular ecommerce shopping cart platforms, such as Magento, ASP.Net Storefront might have sufficient functionality and in this case you may decide to make your ecommerce application as master and GP as slave application. If you feel that ecommerce gives you only the fraction of the revenue, you may decide to control your items, pricelists, catalogs in GP. In Great Plains is chosen to be a Master, you may expect some custom programming in Dexterity, eConnect or Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for GP (and this may mean that you are larger organization)
4. Business to Business versus Business to Customer ecommerce. In B2B you typically want to control processes in GP as pricing is customer dependent and more complex. In B2C model you should consider external ecommerce shopping cart control first
5. Allocation or Sales Order Line Fulfillment. For ecommerce orders you probably want to disable automatic allocation for the items and use manual allocation. This method allows you to use Barcoding or Warehouse Management System to do the job in the warehouse
6. How to achieve quasi real time ecommerce integration. IM integration could be called via DOS command with parameter as integration name. Having this option, consider scheduling it to run every 10 minutes (or you name timing interval) via Scheduled Jobs. There are various freeware applications where you can find enriched version of the scheduling. If you need true real time integration, consider direct eConnect programming in Microsoft Visual Studio in C# or VB. If real time is required and your ecommerce application resides in Linux/PHP/MySQL, we recommend you to wrap eConnect libraries with web service/SOAP
7. If you think that Integration Manager doesn’t do the job, Alba Spectrum has its own ecommerce extensions, where we are automating popular shopping carts, including Magento, ASP.Net Storefront and others
8. If you are on older GP version: 9.0, 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0 or even earlier, please consider update to current version (as we are writing these lines in May 2011) 2010/11.0. If you would start ecommerce project with the old release, you should expect such problems as lack of support directly from Microsoft Business Solutions (currently they only support 2010 and 10.0), problem in finding programmer or consultant who is familiar with the obsolete technology and deprecated methods. Plus currently we are experiencing switch from 32 bit computing to 64 bit Windows (both Intel and AMD are competing now in 64 bit processor market). Older versions require 32 bit SQL Server and Windows
9. For additional information, please feel free to call us 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918 (this number works for international customers) or email us help@albaspectrum.com We serve you USA/Canada nationwide via remote support (web sessions and phone/Skype conferences). Local service is available in Western Michigan, Chicagoland, Southern California (LA, Orange County, San Diego), Houston area of the state of Texas
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