MarketSource searched for a new partner to help them with their current Acumatica infrastructure and selected EIS. Our first order of business was to assess their current configuration and customizations and spend time with them learning about their business. From there, we were able to make several suggestions for improvement.
One of the big changes we proposed was replacing their current Magento Integration with AcuSync. They were having several problems with their existing Magento Integration, including issues with items and pricing not syncing (or not syncing correctly) as well as orders not syncing correctly. It would take several hours for item changes made in Acumatica to sync to the web store, resulting in duplicate data entry because either the data took too long to sync, or would not sync correctly. And sometimes when items did sync, data entered in one system would be overwritten by another system, causing important changes to be lost. This became a nightmare to manage given the thousands of items available in the web store.
Our first step in building a more seamless integration between Magento and Acumatica was to understand exactly how Market Source wanted the data to flow between the systems, and when this data should flow. Market Source wanted:
Orders and new customer information to sync immediately upon checkout (so orders can be fulfilled as soon as possible)
Customer information to only be updated in Acumatica when creating new customers, but not for existing customers. If existing customers updated their billing/shipping address in Magento, that would only update on the order and leave the customer record unchanged.
Shipping information to sync immediately upon shipment (so customers can view tracking information in real-time in the web store)
Items additions, changes, pricing, and inventory counts to sync from Acumatica to Magento periodically throughout the day
One of the big changes we made was to change the synchronization process for all records to sync changed items, only (i.e. an incremental sync). This eliminated the need to have to try and resync all of the data every night. This significantly increased the sync speed and resulted in fewer integration issues. And because AcuSync has the ability to quarantine errors, if an error occurs when syncing, the error would be isolated and other records would continue to sync. Market Source can then easily identify the quarantined record and fix the issue, allowing the corrected record to automatically sync again.
Another challenge with the Market Source Magento integration was to customize how pricing synced to Magento. Market Source uses a combination of default pricing, pricing by customer, and clearance pricing
"After working with another Magento integration provider for Acumatica for a couple of years, we were shocked at how easy the AcuSync connector was put into place. Magento is no easy bear to tackle and the great team at EIS made it almost look easy! We love working with EIS. They are inquisitive and not too quick to give easy answers. They are problem solvers and AcuSync is proof of that!! We are so grateful," said Christine Fleer, Director of Marketing at Market Source.
One of the biggest mistakes that companies make when setting up an integration is that they only think about the "happy path" (i.e. the one path that if taken will allow data to sync correctly). Many companies fail to make their integrations bulletproof. When designing an integration, you must plan for the many "unhappy paths" that can occur, and then have a way to easily identify those issues and resolve them. The challenge with integration is that sometimes these "unhappy paths" are not easy to identify, and may suddenly show up months after successfully launching an integration due to slight configuration changes or upgrades to integrated systems. AcuSync makes this easy because of its ability to quarantine errors and allow other records to continue to sync without being affected. And once issues are corrected, errors can then heal themselves without requiring any additional user intervention.
Customer's Website: www.marketsourceonline.com