XML Connector to Vendors

alsol

Hi,

For a project we need to integrate XML data feed for items and prices (~200'000 items) as well as send and receive purchase documents and status updates by XML to different vendors. We have some experience with XML imports but we always had to implement a new interface for each vendor.

Does anybody know whether there is some predefined connector which can be used for easy data integrations? Could Microsoft BizTalk be used for that? Does anybody have any experience with BizTalk?

Thanks

mandyk

Hi cyberscout,

Navision has B2B solution called Commerce Gateway that would do EDI with external party/system.
The solution provide commerce gateway adapter/connector to communicate with BizTalk server.

BizTalk server then does the connection to your different vendor and perhaps with different adapter/connectors.
They are plenty connector in the BizTalk server from FTP,HTTP,Web-service, WCF, SMTP, etc.

I suggest you to explore Commerce Gateway solution for your perusal.

Cheers

alsol

Hi mandyk,

Thank you for your answer.

I heard about BizTalk and Commerce Gateway but I also heard that the technology is very complex and the development of the integration is very time consuming. Do you have experience with BizTalk projects? If yes, can you confirm this?

Best regards

zimiwings

Hi cyberscout,

I have done some BizTalk Projects (but no Commerce Gateway integration). For the requirements I had (when integrating with NAV), Commerce Gateway would have added unneeded complexity.

The biggest value add, that BizTalk probably brings you is the flexibility of sending and receiving your data (like FTP, Mail etc.). You will need less imports in NAV (in the best case, you can map all incoming file-types to one XML-Schma for NAV), but then again, you will have to define those different Vendor File-Schemas in BizTalk Server...

If you have some XML-Schemas, that you can't import with NAV (because of XML-Port limitations) some Pre-Processor like Biztalk will be a must.

Hope this helps, regards

Daniel

mandyk

Hi cyberscout,

I have done Commerce Gateway with BizTalk Server and has many new interface messages with multiple Vendors and adapters.
What I have done are EDI with R/3 via iDOC/BAPI, EDI with Logistic Provider via WCF, EDI with R/3 XI via HTTPS and recently with another logistic provider via FTP.
BTW just FYI. Commerce Gateway is partly means another BizTalk Adapter to communicate with Navision via NAS.
Otherwise, how you can think Navision itself would communicate with BizTalk and vice versa.

I am coming from Navision fields and need to learn BizTalk and their adapters. My challenging with integrations are need to learn how to use these BizTalk adapters and each Vendors has their own way to do the EDI. Time consuming is always at the beginning but once you have grabs the skill but can make it faster subsequently.

I can not imagine what my development would be if with Navision alone do those EDI.
You should review your scope of integration carefully for following:
1. With BizTalk you need extra hardware and license for BizTalk server is not cheap either.
2. If your project integration are tight in business operation flow.
3. High Volume transaction and you need tracing capability and exception handling. (BizTalk offer you these)
4. Each vendor offer different protocol to communicate and so with their schema. (BizTalk development is transparent to the actual adapter).
5. BizTalk help you a lot in message routing which identifying message type and greatly helpful for message transformation.

To make it short,
If you only need to export/import from one or two table of Navision and not that frequent then forget about using BizTalk.
These solution is too overkill your problem.