Integration of Magento with third party CRM, POS and ERP solutions

Question

Hi there,

First of all I would like to Thank the Varien Company for providing the best ecommerce solution and free community edition. I am very excited since i started knowing about magento.

I am a web developer and very much interested.

I have some concerns about the Integration of Magento with other CRM,ERP systems.

1. How is it possible to integrate Magento with any other Industry standard CRM and ERP system?

2. How can i fetch the data from a ERP and update Magento database, like transactiona replication. Is this possible? And Whats the right way to do it?

3. Also, How can i integrate Magento with POS? Is it possible to have bi-directional data update between Magento and Industry Standard POS?

I hope I have stated all my doubts and made it clear. I would be thankful if someone guides me to do the integration, the Right way.

Thanks and Regards SIA

Answer 1

If you're using Magento Enterprise Edition, take a look at Bridge Connect, which is a service specifically built to integrate with common ERP packages. If you aren't using EE, or if you don't want to pay for Bridge Connect, your best bet is to use the webservices that Magento provides for this task.

The big advantage of using these is that they are relatively stable between upgrades, so you won't completely break your upgrade path. The downside is that they are slow. Silly slow. And they leak memory like a boat made of toilet paper. In my experience, though, this is nothing compared to the trouble of upgrading handwritten code when Magento decides to change the underlying database.

As for a POS, in simple cases the Magento admin sales interface may suffice. You can take CC payments, arrange shipments, etc, and your orders will be approximately the same as if they had been submitted from the web. If not, you're back to webservices if you want them in the Magento system.

If your ERP system is handling fulfillment, you may be able to skip the step of adding POS orders to Magento. Let the ERP system be the system of record for inventory, and just update Magento w/ the new accurate inventory quantities periodically.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, Joe

---

EDIT:

Magento has not stated any plans to change the database that I am aware of, but it has happened several times in the past without warning, and it would be risky to assume that nothing will change. Varien does not make any guarantees about the database format, or whether it will be changed significantly.

When such a change happens, the APIs and objects in the platform are adjusted accordingly, so keeping it above the database level will keep you insulated from those changes, and make the job of evaluating new releases for compatibility that much easier.

Answer 2

The Magento orders/sales database structure was changed in latest release from EAV to flat structure (huge performance boost) and I don't foresee much changes in the near future, however it is highly discouraged to play with DB at the lowest level - try to integrate on Models level.

As for ERP integrations - there are couple options - BridgeConnect offers part of the functionality, webservices too (but there is no order creation in Magento via webservice for example) and you will need middleware or call API from 3rd party system. If you need speed, your best bet is to write a custom integration piece as a Magento extension. If you need flexibility and quick solution - use Webservice (you can extend them too with extensions).

Answer 3

As stated in your accepted answer your best bet is to use the API (either web service or XMLRPC). I used the API to build interfaces into and out of our ERP system using Mule ESB as the event/transfer layer.

If you can't find an API method you need and/or the methods don't work out for you, you can extend the API very easily.

Answer 4

Yes, API and XMLRPC/Web Services is the way to go. Another option is to look for pre-existing Magento Extensions that already do what you are looking for. The Bridge Connet is certainly an option and we considered it for our customers, however we ended up developing our own Magento POS Extension for the popular RunIt POS system.

The Magento Extension is now for sale on our website at http://www.activo.com/magento-extensions/runway-pos-integration-for-magento Check this link if you need more info, we also included an overview video and we have setup a demo for you to try if needed.

This is definitely a growing need as I see more and more web stores need to integrate with back end services due to the growing demand of online commerce. We will be rolling out new features and other extensions that enable online merchants do more with their existing Magento stores.