Tag Archive for: Salesforce CRM


What is eCommerce Integration?

E-commerce Integration is the action of synchronizing operations of an e-commerce website (online store) with an ERP / CRM or other business systems of a company.

Thus, the goal of e-commerce integration with Salesforce, JDE, SAP, or any other ERP / CRM is to create a unified information space, which is basically within the ERP/CRM in place at the company.

This means that both the ERP and the online store must contain consistent information (that is, the data of one system must not conflict with the data of another).

Therefore, the very first step in any integration project, is to define what data objects should be synchronized and what will remain outside the integration.

Best eCommerce Platforms to Build Your Store

It is not that difficult to start an online business. First, you need to select an e-commerce platform on which you will build an e-commerce website.

There are many e-commerce platforms to choose from, but whether you need an enterprise-level solution or a simple e-commerce website, here are the most popular e-commerce platforms that can meet all your needs:


If you want to learn more about eCommerce platform, read our popular article: E-commerce Integration with business systems – outperform the competition


ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is software for complete and efficient enterprise management.

According to research, companies from the Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 such as Walmart, Exxon Mobil, McKesson, General Motors, Costco Wholesale use SAP S/4 HANA. It is an ERP solution for large enterprises.


SAP S/4HANA is an ERP system that combines the functionality of on-premises software with cloud computing. It is often integrated with e-commerce platforms such as Magento to help companies run their online business more efficiently and profitably.

It should be noted that other SAP ERP solutions are no less popular, for example, SAP Business One designed for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The other popular ERP systems and leading vendors are:

  • Oracle (Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle NetSuite ERP)
  • Microsoft (Dynamics NAV, Dynamics AX, Dynamics 365)
  • Sage Group (Sage X3, Sage 300)

Recognize warning signals: How urgent it is to integrate eCommerce with ERP?


The Best CRM Systems for Business

Customer relationship management (CRM) is software for managing interactions with customers and prospects.

As best practices show, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems are always among the key IT systems of companies.

The most popular CRM systems are:

As for the integration of e-commerce and business systems, today the most popular in terms of the number of requests is Salesforce Shopify integration. Of course, this is not surprising given the incredible popularity and availability of these two solutions for medium-sized businesses.


Integrating CRM with business software using Magic xpi


What Data Should Be Integrated With ERP/CRM?

To get the most out of e-commerce integration with ERP or CRM, you need to sync all important data.

Some of the information in your ERP/CRM and the online store is the same, however, they could be in different formats and structure in each system.

Typically, when integrating an e-commerce store with a business system, work is carried out with the following data:

– Product information (Item ID, description, dimensions (weight, length, height…))  
– Inventory and price information
– Customer Information and history Sales Order Information

Thus, typically, through e-commerce integration companies seek to solve the following issues:

Synchronization of Stock Status

Typically this is one-way synchronization from CRM system (i.e. Salesforce) to e-commerce.

Below is our typical synchronization flow for the “stock status”.

  • The Integration process starts runs every 6 hours.
  • The integration flow connects to the CRM/ERP instance to read “stock status”.
  • CRM/ERP should return the list of items, including their Stock available to sell.
  • Once the data is extracted from CRM/ERP, it must be filtered, and the flow will update the necessary items in e-commerce.

Synchronization of Sales Orders

This is one-way synchronization from e-commerce to the business system (ERP/CRM)

Here are the steps for the Sales Orders synchronization flow:

  • The integration process runs every 15 minutes.
  • The integration process connects to the e-commerce instance to read and retrieve the list of orders created since the last call and not yet migrated to CRM / ERP.
  • It brings those orders with their appropriate details
  • Our flow converts these orders into a format ready for transfer to the CRM / ERP system.
  • Orders will be submitted to the CRM/ERP system.
  • An email will be triggered for a mailing list to advise about a new order(s) sent to the CRM/ERP.

Synchronization of Order Fulfillment

One way synchronization from ERP/CRM systems to e-commerce

Here are the steps of this flow:

  • Upon fulfilling the order and shipping the order in CRM/ERP, the status of the order will change.
  • Our integration process runs every 15 minutes.
  • When it wakes up, it will do the following:

1. Extract the list of Orders that are originating from CRM/ERP that are not yet fulfilled

2. For each not fulfilled Order, it will check its status in CRM/ERP

3. If the order status in CRM/ERP is now fulfilled, it will extract the fulfillment necessary information and it will update the e-commerce instance.

4. It will also send an email to a mailing list, to advise about the fulfillment of the order in question.

Looking For the Best E-commerce Integration Solution?

If you need to integrate your online store, contact us, and get a free consultation with our integration expert.

Using advanced integration solutions and having more than 21 years of experience in the field of system integrations, we will quickly and reliably carry out an integration project of any complexity.

Synchronizing Accounts in Salesforce with Customers in NetSuite using Magic xpi

 

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This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.


At the end of a discussion we had with one of our contacts, who was inquiring about EDI, Salesforce and how to integrate it all together, I decided to write this article, in order to clarify and structure my arguments with the hope it can help other readers who might fall on this article having the same questions and concerns. I will start by defining some technical terms, prior to getting to the points.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is one of the most popular cloud-based CRM. The company is based in California (USA), and it has thousands of users worldwide. We’ve already written an article that provides more about the product, which I invite you to read, and learn more about salesforce itself, and how Magic xpi can be the best integration platform with Salesforce.

What is EDI?

Electronic Data Interchange or (EDI) is fundamentally a standard that regulates the electronic exchange of business documents between trading partners. EDI contains a set of message types. There are many different EDI standards i.e. X12, EDIFACT, RosettaNet…used mainly in different industries and different parts of the world. In North America, the US standard ANSI ASC X12 is p predominantly used.

Some example message types are:

Help: What is EDI2XML as a Service?

EDI2XML as a Service is our popular translation and communication service offering to businesses of all sizes, from various industries. All conversions of EDI files are done on our end, leaving customers with no on-site installation of software or hardware and an EDI project that is on time and within budget.

Download our EDI2XML Translation Service Pricing Package here for more information

Why EDI Integration with Salesforce is Important

Companies of all sizes have different systems in place: i.e. ERP, CRM, Warehouse management…Some other companies might only operate their business using Salesforce.

It is a common situation that companies will have business partners requesting to exchange EDI (regardless of the standard), with them. The truth is that companies’ can NOT refuse such a request coming from a customer for example. They have to comply with such demand and become “EDI ready” or “EDI compliant”.

In a such scenario, the company running Salesforce will be receiving a Sales order (850 as an example) and sending back and invoice (810) for billing purposes, all in X12 standard (for example). What to do about this requirement? Companies need to take action.

Why You Need to integrate EDI into Salesforce

Given the above facts and considering that Salesforce “out-of-the-box” does NOT support any EDI standard, there is no choice for a company leveraging Salesforce, to escape the integration request.

Ultimately, businesses need to Integrate EDI into their Salesforce instance. By pushing EDI messages into their Salesforce instance in a near real-time basis, companies can achieve even more with the Salesforce system.

“Need Integration” Checklist

Each company is unique, and it can be a lot of reasons why your business needs Integrations. Following are the most common reasons a company might need to consider, in order to jump into integration projects:

– Your trading partner(s) is requesting to exchange data electronically

– Your company gets a lot of orders (200+ orders a month on average), this is being taped manually in different systems, thus taking lots of time of your employees, and creating inefficiencies.

– You are looking for a better experience with your customer. You need to get your inventory out that always exact, tracking numbers are received instantly after the merchandise is sent, etc.

– You do not have enough time to process orders. Your costumers need to wait for order processing.

– As third-party sellers, you are getting penalties from Amazon, eBay, and other marketplaces for the reason that you are not shipping orders fast enough.

– Your company receiving negative reviews from your customers who shop online, because of slow service or erroneous orders processing.

What to do Next to integrate EDI and Salesforce

Integrating EDI with Salesforce, is a bit different from other types of integration projects, a company might go through. Due to the fact that EDI is very specific, it requires very specific expertise. Here are some of the important points to consider before going into EDI integration projects:

  • For EDI integration in general, work with an EDI provider, and NOT with VANS (Value Added Networks). VANs are more expensive and less into integration.
  • Make sure the EDI provider is “integration oriented”; meaning he is not only specialized in EDI, but in integration as a concept
  • Do NOT settle half-way with “file integration”, look for near “real-time” integration, directly into your system.
  • Do NOT settle with point-to-point integration”. Developing and “coding” integration points, is very expensive to maintain at long term.
  • Look for the best integration method: look for certified connectors from the manufacturer (salesforce).

Integrate EDI with Salesforce to drive your business

If you need more information or help in determining your need in EDI to Salesforce Integration, please contact our integration experts, and Feel free to request a free demonstration.

EDI Salesforce Integration

Salesforce is a cloud CRM solution, designed to manage customer relationships, sales, and marketing. The company was founded in 1999 in San Francisco. At that time, the existing CRM systems were quite complicated to configure and expensive to operate, therefore, only large companies could afford a CRM system. The initial idea of Salesforce was to offer CRM in the “cloud” and sell the software through an annual subscription or lease model, computed per user of the software.

CRM IntegrationHelp: What is CRM?

CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a software system that allows your business to manage contacts, collaborate effectively, increase productivity & grow your business. It is based on the preservation and analysis of information to improve the marketing, service and business relations with your customers.

Why Salesforce?

Salesforce CRM is provided in a “software as a service” model (SaaS). Customers receive ready-made, ready to use CRM software application, fully serviced by the provider. Salesforce is accessible in a web-based interface on a Desktop, mobile or tablet. It is also accessible via mobile devices. This offers a great number of advantages to end-users in comparison with other traditional solutions.

When opting to Software as a service, end-users get the benefits of a reduced cost associated with the initial installation and continuous maintenance of the software.

Moreover, the SaaS model reduces to the maximum the upfront investment to acquire hardware equipments where the software should be installed, along with its continuing maintenance and support.

Add to the above, the convenience to be able to access and run the software application, from any device, browser or mobile application from anywhere in the world, since it is sitting in the cloud.

Who uses Salesforce?

Salesforce CRM is the ideal solution for small and medium businesses, as well as for large organizations. More than 150,000 customers of all sizes and various industries are connecting with their customers, partners, and employees with Salesforce’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

Integration with Salesforce

Salesforce plays an important role within lots of companies of any size, however, it does not cover all the business processes an enterprise can have. Therefore, the enterprise will certainly have in place another software solutions (mainly ERP) deployed in the “cloud” or “on-premises”.

The ERP is mainly the main vehicle an enterprise uses to cover the main business processes (for example, inventory, pick, pack ship…); it is a very common scenario to find a company running a Salesforce instance in its Marketing and sales department, while running an Oracle JDE or SAP or Microsoft ERP, in the other departments.

The above scenario creates a delicate situation where the master data (i.e. customers, accounts, items, prospects…) are entered and maintained separately in each one of the software systems of the company, hence creating the need to “Orchestrate” and “integrate” data between all the above systems, in a safe and automatic manner.

What is Magic xpi?

Magic xpi and Salesforce IntegrationIn summary, Magic xpi is a code-free, low maintenance platform that maps your company’s data, automates your business processes and connects your apps, databases, APIs and more – all on a single platform. Magic xpi is a technology proprietary of Magic Software enterprises, a NASDAQ company, present in almost every country in the world with millions of users Worldwide.

Magic xpi certified connector for Salesforce

To soften the integration challenges and allow enterprises to orchestrate and integrate data between different dispersed systems, Magic Software (MSE) the manufacturer of “Magic xpi” integration platform, built a “Salesforce connector”.

This connector eases the integration with Salesforce by discovering the objects built within the application and allowing the user to build mapping between source and destination, visually with a simple drag and drop process, without the need for extensive development and programming skills.

Moreover, MSE went farther into certifying this connector with Salesforce themselves, to add to it the stamp and approval of Salesforce.

Salesforce API or Magic xpi?

The answer to this question is that using Magic xpi as a backend integration platform, will eliminate the need for point-to-point integration between Salesforce and any system or API.

Add to it, the agnostic nature of Magic xpi, makes any integration from Salesforce to any other system similar in nature: You always do things the same way, without any coding.

I invite my readers to click here in order to download Magic xpi product sheet, in order to know more about this great integration platform.

Improve your integration projects

If you need more information or help in determining your need in Salesforce Integration, please click on the below image to contact our integration team and feel free to request a free demonstration of Magic xpi platform integration with Salesforce.

Magic-xpi Integration Platform