Recently, we had a call from a web developer who had taken a project building and integrating an ecommerce website with an ERP. When we asked him if he had done this before he said, “No, but how hard can it be. You are just mapping one database field to another.” It is actually a little harder than that and you don’t want to be the one paying him to learn that it is harder.
If you are considering integrating an ecommerce website and your MS Dynamics ERP company file (Dynamics GP, AX, or NAV), you want to be sure that the person or company doing the work can deliver what you need. To help you in the selection process we have compiled the following list of questions that you should ask of each company/developer that you are considering for your project.
The first section is General Questions about the integration and their experience with doing integrations with MS Dynamics ERPs. The second section has Specific Questions concerning key aspects of MS Dynamics such as customer pricing and taxes that are crucial to any integration working well.
General Questions
- How many MS Dynamics ERP integrations have you done?
- Do you have any MS Dynamics ERP integration references that I can talk with?
- Can you show me a functioning website moving items, customer specific pricing, tax data, customers, invoices, sales orders, and shipping info from MS Dynamics ERP to the website?
- Can you show me a functioning website moving sales orders, customers, credit card info, etc. from the website to MS Dynamics ERP?
- What happens when we upgrade to a new version of the ERP? Do we have to rebuild the website? What are the costs for the website when I upgrade to a new ERP version (software and labor)?
- How is new functionality added to my site? What is the price for new modules? Is the website down when upgrades are made? Does the website have to be rebuilt?
- Do you have access to hundreds of software modules that can be demonstrated prior to purchase?
- Do you have a pre-production environment to view/test module changes before they are published?
- Will I be the beta user of the software you are quoting? Do you have a version management system to handle changes?
- What technology/process do you use to transfer data between the website and the ERP?
- How often is data updated?
- Does my MS Dynamics server have to be online for the website to work?
Specific Questions
- If you add a new customer in MS Dynamics, is that customer automatically added to the website database?
- If a new customer comes to the website, is their account information transferred to MS Dynamics?
- If you add a ship to address in MS Dynamics for the customer does that automatically show up on the website?
- If a customer changes or adds a ship to address on the website, is the change reflected in MS Dynamics?
- If you change a customer’s payment terms (for example COD to net30), does that automatically change the payment options for the customer in the website?
- Can you manage customer specific pricing in MS Dynamics and have it automatically updated on the website?
- Can you manage retail pricing from the inventory master and apply a price level to public (retail) pricing?
- Can you see Sales orders (open and historical) on the website from transactions that were both placed on the web and initiated in MS Dynamics?
- Can customers view Invoice history and open invoices from MS Dynamics?
- Can customers pay open invoices online? And have them flow correctly into MS Dynamics?
- Do shipments and shipment tracking numbers flow automatically from MS Dynamics to the website?
- Does the inventory level in MS Dynamics flow to the website and display correctly on each product?
- How is tax calculated? Are you able to manage tax rules/settings in MS Dynamics and have them flow to the website?
- Are you able to manage tax exempt customers in MS Dynamics and have them flow to the website?
- If you are you using the Sage Payment gateway for credit card purchases:
- Have you done the integration between the website and the Sage Payment Solutions gateway?
- If so, would you be able to pre-authorize the card on the site and pass the transaction into MS Dynamics for capture/completion?
We hope this helps you select a company to do your integration between an ecommerce website and MS Dynamics GP, AX, or NAV. Websitepipeline can answer all these questions to your satisfaction.
For a free demonstration and estimate please contact websitepipeline at 1-800-266-3579 or Contact Us