Magento 2 ERP Integration Best Practices: Microsoft Dynamics

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Magento 2 ERP Integration Best Practices:
Microsoft Dynamics

Joshua Warren
CEO, Creatuity
@JoshuaSWarren / #MageTitansUSA

• Family of ERP systems
• Dynamics AX
• Dynamics GP
• Dynamics NAV
• Dynamics SL
• Dynamics C5
Microsoft Dynamics

• Manages finance, manufacturing, CRM, supply chain and inventory for
medium-sized enterprises
Microsoft Dynamics NAV

• Needs no introduction
Magento Commerce

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Eliminate dependence on third-party encrypted ERP connectors
A Corporate Mission

• Much of this integration was designed and written by an excellent
long-time member of our development team, Scott
A Special Thanks

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Does the ERP have an existing PHP library?
• If not, what language is the ERP’s library written in?
RabbitMQ – Architecture Questions

• 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

• 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

• Task Layer
• Service Layer
• Data Layer
• Connection Layer
Layers

• Product update, shipment update and order update are each tasks
• Easily add new tasks in the future
• Cron and RabbitMQ level tasks occur here
Task Layer

• Used to perform requests to Microsoft Dynamics
• Executes and parses requests
Service Layer

• Contains all logic related to processing both Magento and
Microsoft Dynamics data
Data Layer

• 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

• Extract data from a source
• Process, map and transform that data
• Deliver it to the destination
Basic Concepts

• 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

• Keeps code clean & easy to maintain
Structure

• 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

• 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

$stockItem = $this->stockRegistry->getStockItem($productData->getId());
$stockItem
->setQty($intermediateData->getQty())
->setIsInStock($intermediateData->getIsInStock());
$this->stockRegistry->updateStockItemBySku($productData->getSku(),
$stockItem);
Updating Magento Stocks from ERP

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• One consistent system for all integrations, lowering
maintenance costs and time to implement
• Open source? Collaboration?
Vision

• 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

• 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

@JoshuaSWarren / Creatuity.com
Questions?

Magento 2 ERP Integration Best Practices: Microsoft Dynamics

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