SuiteTalk Integration
In early 2014, a strategic decision and subsequent contractual agreement was made for another retailer to take on the exclusive distribution of my client's merchandise (B2C and wholesale). This effectively meant that use (not title) of their eStore domain was passed to the new retailer, who would run the end-to-end e-commerce operations going forward. My final project with this particular client was to integrate NetSuite with the front-end systems of the retailer.
Solution:
Utilise NetSuite’s bespoke “SuiteTalk” API to contact the NetSuite platform and import new sales order and customer records from the front-end.
Some points to consider:
• The existing membership process: my client had a list of customers who would renew their membership yearly to receive privileges like free tickets and merchandise discounts with the business. To ensure customers remained unaffected by the change over, my client continued to manage this.
• Managing the load of orders: As my client did not own a "SuitePlus Cloud" licence with NetSuite, their platform was unable to permit concurrent web service calls. To resolve, a pooling mechanism had to be configured on the front-end system.
• Customer shopping experience: With the change of ownership, a strategy to implement the new integration without impacting customer experience was imperative. To maximise the experience, my team made sure a customer could submit their order immediately (although, their order would not integrate into NetSuite right away due to the pooling merchanism in place.)
• Data mapping: As with any migration exercise, my team had to appoint unique IDs for each customer & transaction record on both front and back-end so that identification of customers was seamless.
• Security: My team had to ensure the retailer had only the necessary access required to complete the end-to-end integration. By configuring a 'Web Service Only' role for them and setting up minimal rights to records, my client was able to minimise risk of unauthorised access.
• The existing membership process: my client had a list of customers who would renew their membership yearly to receive privileges like free tickets and merchandise discounts with the business. To ensure customers remained unaffected by the change over, my client continued to manage this.
• Managing the load of orders: As my client did not own a "SuitePlus Cloud" licence with NetSuite, their platform was unable to permit concurrent web service calls. To resolve, a pooling mechanism had to be configured on the front-end system.
• Customer shopping experience: With the change of ownership, a strategy to implement the new integration without impacting customer experience was imperative. To maximise the experience, my team made sure a customer could submit their order immediately (although, their order would not integrate into NetSuite right away due to the pooling merchanism in place.)
• Data mapping: As with any migration exercise, my team had to appoint unique IDs for each customer & transaction record on both front and back-end so that identification of customers was seamless.
• Security: My team had to ensure the retailer had only the necessary access required to complete the end-to-end integration. By configuring a 'Web Service Only' role for them and setting up minimal rights to records, my client was able to minimise risk of unauthorised access.
Reflection
Reflecting back on this project, I felt it had many benefits and disadvantages; many of which I found out after the integration implementation was complete.
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