Magento 2 ERP Integration Best Practices: Microsoft Dynamics

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Introductions

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Page | 8 © 2017 Mage Titans • Business processes such as fulfillment and inventory management become highly automated • Employees don’t waste time manually entering data • Focus on delivering unique value – not just doing the things a computer could do Magento Commerce + Dynamics NAV

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Page | 9 © 2017 Mage Titans • Stable, scalable integration • Simple to maintain, low cost of ownership – no one wants to spend their budget on ERP integrations • Easy to support – no one wants to answer tickets about an ERP integration Project Goals

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Page | 10 © 2017 Mage Titans • Import basic product & inventory data from Dynamics (no PIM) • Export customers and orders from Magento into Dynamics • Import shipment data from Dynamics • Don’t break the Dynamics-powered POS deployed in 30+ stores – this is a real-world deployment, not a theoretical project Business Goals

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Integration Architecture

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Page | 15 © 2017 Mage Titans • Base module for all of our integrations • Provides a common set of logging, reporting and UI components • Ensures all of our integrations have a merchant-friendly admin management page Base Module

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Page | 16 © 2017 Mage Titans • RabbitMQ, scalable messaging queue • Magento 2 has native support for communicating with Rabbit • Rabbit libraries for PHP, Java, .NET, Python, Javascript, Ruby & Go so ERP developers can use the language of their choice RabbitMQ

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Page | 17 © 2017 Mage Titans • Creatuity writes the module necessary to publish and consume Rabbit messages in Magento • ERP integrator or client’s in-house ERP team writes the code to publish and consume Rabbit messages for the ERP RabbitMQ – In General

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Page | 18 © 2017 Mage Titans • Creatuity also supports the client’s Microsoft Dynamics instance, so we’re writing both ends of the connection • Continuing to develop best practices around where to host the ERP-specific code in this case – another Magento module or a separate script RabbitMQ – Microsoft Dynamics

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Page | 20 © 2017 Mage Titans • Best case – ERP’s library is written in PHP, merchant is using Magento Commerce Cloud • Worst case – client’s ERP utilizes an antiquated language and is hosted behind a strict firewall RabbitMQ – Architecture Questions

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Page | 21 © 2017 Mage Titans • Sometimes RabbitMQ is more than a smaller site needs • “Cron mode” enables direct communication from Magento to Dynamics using Magento’s cron system for scheduled tasks • Works well in this case as we are responsible for both the Magento code and the ERP integration code Rabbit Alternative - Cron Mode

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Page | 26 © 2017 Mage Titans • Performs and manages the actual connection to Microsoft Dynamics • Encapsulates all connection logic so remaining code doesn’t care how the connection works or if it changes Connection Layer

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Integration Implementation

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Page | 29 © 2017 Mage Titans • Designed as a single Magento module • Module is broken down into 10 main models to implement our layers • Some of the models then break down into smaller components Structure

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Page | 31 © 2017 Mage Titans • Manager that manages the overall data transformation process • Extractor pulls data from source, uses a Mapper to map fields to a standard format • Transform class performs basic transformations Data Layer

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Page | 32 © 2017 Mage Titans • Processor class processes changes in Magento that need to happen based on data from the ERP • Allows us to utilize core Magento functions for making these changes • DI & architecture of Magento 2 makes this simple • For instance – we use the core StockRegistryInterface API Data Layer - Processor

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Page | 33 © 2017 Mage Titans $stockItem = $this->stockRegistry->getStockItem($productData->getId()); $stockItem ->setQty($intermediateData->getQty()) ->setIsInStock($intermediateData->getIsInStock()); $this->stockRegistry->updateStockItemBySku($productData->getSku(), $stockItem); Updating Magento Stocks from ERP

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Page | 34 © 2017 Mage Titans • Microsoft Dynamics NAV can be customized – field names can be changed • Don’t hard-code field names • Separate out implementation-specific code from platform- specific code Lessons Learned

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Page | 35 © 2017 Mage Titans • 150 hours of development work and QA • 10 hours of documentation • Deploying this integration for future Microsoft Dynamics clients could be a 5-10 hour process Implementation Effort

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End User Experience

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Page | 37 © 2017 Mage Titans • Customers on the site aren’t aware the ERP exists – which is our goal • Their orders are fulfilled quickly and they receive a tracking number soon after placing their order • If the customer experience is impacted by your ERP, there’s room to improve that integration Customer-Facing Experience

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Page | 38 © 2017 Mage Titans • Warehouse staff fulfill orders out of Microsoft Dynamics as they always have – no need to login to a separate system • Customer service representatives can view up-to-date product inventory and order status information in Magento, no need to login to Dynamics • If a sync encounters an issue, detailed information is available in the Magento admin panel for easy troubleshooting and resolution Admin User Experience

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Page | 39 © 2017 Mage Titans • Previous off-the-shelf connector required a developer to SSH to the server any time the sync failed. • Encrypted code made debugging impossible • No stable base for feature enhancements Developer Experience

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Future Improvements

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Page | 41 © 2017 Mage Titans • Refactoring code to allow other members of the Microsoft Dynamics family to easily integrate with Magento • Developing new adapters based on other integration methods (i.e., CSV files) • Expanding to connect with other ERPs as well Adapters

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Results

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Page | 44 © 2017 Mage Titans • Restocked products go live on Magento much more quickly • Errors importing one order no longer stops all other orders from importing • It just works – no longer have to think about the ERP integration Faster, More Reliable Syncing

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Page | 45 © 2017 Mage Titans • This integration would’ve taken substantially longer if not for the design patterns and architecture of Magento 2 • Code is cleaner, easier to maintain and more robust thanks to following the Magento 2 architecture Impact of Magento 2

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@JoshuaSWarren / Creatuity.com Questions?