Integrating/Linking Epicor with a website

Yahoo Archive
1
What I can say now that the ITSM/Sharepoint and Epicor Service Connect has been a rather large learning curve.  We are now in the final throws of a Phase 1 roll out with basic search case/and add cases, with file attachments,

Cases in E9 marked as External get displayed in the Portal along with any related call logs marked as external.

Cases created in the Portal create a new case in E9 and synch with the E9 case number.

Portal users have the ability to search on cases of category (customization) of type CRM, Project Support and Support, Along with filtering by date, status, projectID, customer reference.

I am just sorting out a small customization on the customer contact tab in E9 to reset the password.

As it stands there are quite a few chunks to it:
ESC workflows
ITSM import jobs
ITSM Event Listeners (MS Message Queues)
ITSM Support Notifications
BPMs to fire ESC Workflows.
Additional Integration database that stores some DML for copying attachments.

As always there can be refinement.

Cheers
Simon Hall
2

we are developing a prototype website where a customer can return parts. here is our plan in achieving it.could you guys please comment on it?


When customer return a parts via web portal, Partnum validation need to be done in the webpage.

 

For the above case to work,

1) the part table need to be in the hosted in the web as a db.

2) Or the website should directly talk with local production Epicor db.

 

So we came up with something like this ... create a login database which contains customer info, and this db is hosted in the web. let’s call hosted db as "dbCust".

 

our local erp database is called "dbEpicor".

 

now, in dbCust - write stored procedures(sp)/views that talks with dbEpicor.

(note: the sp/views will have static connection string to talk with "dbEpicor". the connection string will access very limited objects with read only permission)

 

stored procedures for data validation(when customer enter partnum in website, check whether it exist in "dbEpicor"), views for customer to see their orders.

 

this mean, we dont need to replicate any data from our local db to other webhosted db.

 

once, data validation is passed - send the data as xml/csv to a location where service connect keep monitoring and creates transaction.


what do you guys think on this in terms of:

 

1  security

2  feasibility 


or any better ideas ? maybe an insight on how you guys integrated currently in your business.


note: we did not use epicor web services because - i think it consumes sessions/license and it expose our Epicor BO's plus could not find better guidance on it.


all comments are highly appreciated.   


thank you!


3
Hi,
Have you had a look at Customer Connect, I am not sure if that gives you RMA functionality, but you can control who logs in through Customer Contact Records.

Perhaps you could use SharePoint Foundaiton to create an App.

Service Connect also has SharePoint Connectivity as well as REST connectivity, which means you should be able to interface Epicor ERP to pretty much any web based products/services (eg Joomla, Jira, zendesk etc).

We are just in the process to integrating ITSM Portal for customer support cases.  So I am interested in what you end up coming up with.

Cheers
Simon Hall
4
Hi Simon,

After posting this subject, I did checked the forum for couple of days. there was no response. and didnt login to this group for a while. thats why giving you late reply.

At first, thanks for your reply. 

we would like to see feasibility, reliability and flexibility in achieving our objective(sales order returns via online) using the technologies/skills(service connect/web developer) we have, before investing on Epicor modules. 

currently, this project is on hold with us , and expecting to start working on this on or before next month.



  





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I'll be interested to see the outcome.

Cheers
Simon