In today’s vibrant and competitive e-commerce market, ensuring optimum Webstore production is nearer and nearer the top of many companies’ “must have” lists. Offering stable online exchange platforms for B2B and B2C transactions is no longer an exotic luxury reserved for the Silicon Valley elite, but an absolute requirement in developing new markets and maintaining trading relationships which are driven more and more by the comfort and speed of Internet commerce.
To preserve and enhance the competitive advantage gained by providing secure online options to your customers, ensuring stable back-office integration of your Webstore is essential if growth is to be achieved. This is where eBridge Support Services enters the picture.
This week we would like to highlight some of the more common issues related to Webstore configuration maintenance which need to be proactively and collaboratively tackled to ensure the highest return on business efficiencies of Webstore integration which lead to customer satisfaction and growth.
One of the more prevalent (and to some, obvious) issues that can interrupt your Webstore integration configuration is misaligned access credentials. The need to maintain synchronicity between periodically changing Webstore credentials and your ePortal account is vital to ensure seamless integration – and the bragging rights that go along with it! Accordingly, make sure you remember to update your ePortal account settings each time your Webstore requires a password change. This will prevent delayed orders and ensure accuracy in web-facing inventory metrics.
Other issues which can compromise your Webstore connection include server changes or maintenance, and hosting changes or maintenance. These types of environmental changes require active communication between all parties to ensure limited interruption. If you are undergoing scheduled maintenance of any kind which may interrupt your connection, make sure to temporarily de-activate your connection, or contact Support Services and we can do this for you. This will prevent unnecessary errors (which can be disconcerting), as well as prevent radical changes in inventory or other product statuses which can be disorienting for customers.
Over the past couple of months we have had many requests for EDI Shipping Labels and ASN’s; the inquires range from Walmart to Home Depot & Bass Pro Shops just to name a few.
The powerful eBridge Connections platform allows you to integrate and automate data between your back-office systems and hundreds of EDI partners, eCommerce marketplaces and CRM systems. By using the eBridge Connections API, you can connect the integration solution to any platform using web services.
In this video, we follow an order from Amazon through the eBridge Connections universal integration platform and into an ERP system. FBA and non-FBA programs are both supported, as is Amazon EDI. We can also integrate and automate the settlement reports into your accounting/ERP system.
If you’re wondering about integrating your specific accounting/ERP system, please watch the following video to learn why it doesn’t matter what you are using.
Microsoft’s annual ERP & CRM conference, Dynamics Convergence 2012 has just wrapped up in Houston, Texas. As usual, Microsoft launched the conference with a blizzard of new product announcements and feature surprises. Here is what you need to know:
Q4 releases of GP 2013 and NAV 2013 will be enabled to run on Windows Azure
As has long been expected, the next generation of Dynamics ERPs will be enabled to run on Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud application platform. At Convergence, Microsoft announced that Dynamics GP 2013 and Dynamics NAV 2013 will both be released in Q4 2012 and capable of running in Windows Azure. A beta version of GP 203 will be released in May.
Microsoft says that the VAR/partner ecosystem will continue
Despite their new cloud product line, Microsoft executives renewed their commitment to the partner/VAR channel. In his keynote address, Kiril Tatanirov, President of Microsoft Business Solutions said that “our partners remain a very important part of our ecosystem, whether it’s private or public cloud.”
Social is coming to Microsoft Dynamics CRM
A raft of social features for Microsoft Dynamics CRM were announced, including native social media analytics, greater integration with Windows Mobile applications and new options to provide social customer service through Dynamics CRM. This new release, called Dynamics CRM 2012 will begin shipping in Q4.
Recently, we have had numerous prospects ask about AS2 with regards to EDI communication with their trading partner(s). This prompted me to go looking back through our Blog Archives – I was able to find this informative post by Nazma in Help Desk:
This morning, as I browse back through our Blog and some posts from 2010, 2011 – I noticed a great article series written by our Mike Catalfamo on eCommerce Integration and the best practice process for integrating Sales Orders, Customer info, Inventory Quantities, and Shipping details (tracking #’s etc) to your accounting package. Here are the 4 parts of this series again:
How does EDI work? What is the process? Why do people use it? What are the advantages/disadvantages?
Recently, someone posted these questions on Quora and thought I would post my response here as well.
EDI (electronic data interchange) is a standard data structure that allows companies with differing hardware and software systems to exchange information in a common format. EDI is used to communicate a variety of information and is typically used in a supply chain. It is widely adopted in retail, healthcare, automotive and even by the U.S. Department of Defense.
There are many different EDI solutions in the marketplace so the process and tools you set up and use can differ but the high level processing steps are the same. Read more…
If your EDI trading partner has asked you to transmit ASN documents, it is likely that the UCC/EAN-128 barcode label is also required. The label, usually attached to each carton or the entire pallet, allows the shipping receiver to quickly determine the contents of the carton/pallet in conjunction with the ASN paperwork. This is done by scanning the SSCC-18 bar code at the bottom of the label.
While it seems reasonable to the trading partner that these labels are used since they speed up shipment verification at the receiving dock, they can be a pain for the supplier to generate, particularly since they contain bar codes that need to match the corresponding ASN document.
The labels are typically 4″x6″ in portrait mode and usually need to be printed on thermal paper. Let’s look at specifications for two different trading partners, Lowe’s and The Sports Authority.
As you can see, both labels contain the same basic information, the exact layout will vary by trading partner. Additionally, some trading partners are more strict than others about tolerances regarding font size, spacing, paper type, barcode density and so on. Read more…
Salesforce pioneered the Software-as-a-Service industry and is the leading CRM solution, which is why I am excited to announce exciting news regarding the eBridge integration connector for Salesforce.
We have enhanced the integration connection to allow greater flexibility, including:
Access to any objects related to an “Opportunity”, including those that are one or more steps removed. For example, for Opportunity –> Account –> Case, the Case object is not linked directly to the Opportunity but we will be able to ‘tow’ it along when we pull the Opportunity.
Access custom objects related to the Opportunity. Salesforce is almost always customized to accommodate specific business processes or workflows and that means adding objects that are not native to the default Salesforce environment. Now eBridge can access custom objects so we can accommodate your specific business usage of Salesforce!
Access an unlimited number of user-created fields (maximum was previously 20) on the Opportunity and any of the objects that come down with the Opportunity. This means we can support an unlimited number of custom fields on the Contacts object, for example, since Contacts is linked to the Opportunity. Of course all of this true for custom objects as well.
Here is a diagram highlighting the Opportunity object in green and all the related standard objects we can access, in orange. Don’t forget, if you create a custom object that is linked to any of these, we can access that as well! Click the image to enlarge.
We are always looking for your feedback on how you would like to integrate Salesforce with your back-office systems so please leave your comments below or on The Core, the eBridge community forum.
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