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Supplier integrations
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Supplier Integrations

Solution use cases

Using Norce Commerce for its rich supplier functionality requires first and foremost willing and reliable suppliers that can provide data and services that are correct, relevant and on-time. This is usually an ongoing process with the supplier, where trust and inter-dependence are built up over time.

Norce provides functionality that can support the customer and its suppliers on this journey and looks at this process as a joint road-trip for the supplier and its customer with three distinct milestones, where the solution with Norce require changes in its integrations.

Manual catalog imports

The first step is to manually import product information from the supplier into Norce Commerce. This makes it possible to:

  • Have and maintain procurement information in Norce Commerce, able to make decisions based on supplier data
  • Calculate prices, based on Purchase Costs
  • Create sellable products based on supplier product data
  • Able to show estimated delivery information, even for products currently not in your own local stock

Integration of catalog data

The next level is to do the imports of product catalogs automatically with an integration to Norce Commerce Connect. This provides no new functionality but makes the benefits immediate. Use this when a supplier has:

  • Good and correct data, in an unchangeable format over time
  • Data that changes often and in critical ways

A standard setup of the catalog integration contains:

Supplier integration process

  1. Norce Commerce receives a product catalog from the supplier with all information that is needed to match the products to Norce's product catalog for the client.
    1. At specific times, usually daily or weekly, a full product import is executed.
  2. Norce Commerce can receive smaller messages more often, for example stock value information. This makes it possible to have as close as possible correct information in Norce Commerce.
    1. At specific times, usually hourly or 3-6 times a day a stock change import is executed.

Read about supplier catalog integrations below.

Using extended assortments in Norce Commerce

As a next step of integration with the supplier is to make it possible to sell products through Norce Commerce that is not handled through the client’s warehouses. These products reside solely in Norce Commerce and are not created in the ERP until an order is received from an end-customer. This makes it possible to add a much larger product catalog without the added management in all client’s systems, most of these products are only in Norce Commerce.

A standard setup of the extended assortment integration contains:

Extended assortment integration process

  1. A specific product type is created in Norce Commerce, for products not integrated into the ERP system. When the products are enriched they are set to active and are sellable, having all the functionality in Norce Commerce that normal products have.
    1. The integration from step 1, are modified, so that certain product is automatically created sellable with the new product type Extended.
  2. With a large product catalog, the client may need automation's regarding content integrations. This can be set up using existing integrations with suppliers (if they provide, images and other content data), but also using content providers (services that provides product information for different segments of commerce).
    1. New integration or changes to integrations from step 1 is made, to add content automation in Norce Commerce. Read about adding content below.
  3. When an order is received, containing extended products, the order integration needs to handle this and using a workflow pattern, that first create the products in the ERP, and after that send in the order.
    1. Create extended products in ERP and waiting for acknowledgement, read about creating products based on Norce Commerce data here: Products and Pricing Integrations
    2. Send order to ERP, read about how to Implement an Order Receiver Service

Delegating the Order fulfillment (drop shipping)

When the trust and relationship with the supplier is high, a client using Norce Commerce can set up drop-ship functionality, so that purchase orders are directly sent to the supplier when end-customers buys certain products. The supplier integrations is done using functionality already in place in the ERP system. For modern, feature-rich ERP solutions this functionality can be provided out-of-the-box. Although it is important to make sure that the initial purchase order is created and sent to the supplier as soon as possible since this is the only way to make sure that the promise to the end customer can be fulfilled.

A standard setup of the drop ship integration contains:

Drop-ship integration process

  1. The order process from Norce Commerce to ERP is similar, but the order lines have the relevant drop-ship information needed
    1. A new order is sent to the ERP, Implement an Order Receiver Service that also lookup supplier data to pass in together with the order, see more below
    2. Sales order updates are sent back to Norce Commerce (Shopping Integrations)
  2. The ERP system creates purchase order(s), based on the information sent in from Norce Commerce, and sends out the PO´s to the supplier(s).
    1. Purchase orders are sent to the supplier from the ERP
    2. Purchase order updates, including delivery notifications is sent back from the supplier to the ERP
  3. The ERP are keeping track on when the sales order is fulfilled using the information provided by Norce Commerce on the sales order and the purchase order updates.
    1. When all rows are fulfilled, either delivered from local warehouse or marked as delivered, using delivery notes from the supplier, an invoice is created
    2. The invoice is sent to the integration that passes it to Norce Commerce, who is responsible for the capture of the payments from the end customer (Shopping Integrations).

About the API's

For system integration with Norce Commerce use:

  • Norce Commerce Connect The API used by all system integrations is the Norce Commerce Connect. Read about how use it here: Calling Norce Commerce Connect
  • Norce Commerce Query The API used to lookup and fetch data is the Norce Commerce Query. This is a queryable API that exposes Norce's data layer for the solutions. Read about how to use it here: Calling Norce Commerce Query

Integration scenarios

Read about Norce’s System integration patterns to get more detailed information on how to build your integration.

Manually import supplier catalog to Norce Commerce

The easiest way to import supplier data is to used Import functionality i the Admin UI. Read more about here and here.

Automatically integrate a supplier catalog to Norce Commerce

For all incoming supplier data the same endpoint is used - ImportProducts. This method receives supplier products and its prices and onhand information, but is also able to receive some product content as well.

Description

ImportProducts takes a enumerable of SupplierProduct entities and updates Norce Commerce if changes has been made. This is done asynchronously, look at the integration pattern here: System integration patterns

Full and delta updates

Full updates will automatically disable all supplier products in Norce Commerce, that is not passed in the payload of the import. Full import is the most common used for Supplier integrations, because it is usually how the data is received, as a full catalog. Usually 1-7 times a week.

Delta updates might be used if the supplier have another kind of endpoint, for example if it is possible to get onhand information more often that the rest of the catalog. Use delta to handle a subset of the catalog more often. Commonly 1-2 times a day.

Examples and other resources

Get supplier information from Norce Commerce

In some cases there is a need to get supplier data out from Norce Commerce, this might be when an order is processed for drop-ship and Norce Commerce has the information on the supplier, or in other product integration processes.

Read more about product integration processes here: Product and Pricing integration and using Norce Commerce Query here: Calling Norce Commerce Query

Here are some examples on how to get supplier data from Norce Commerce using Norce Commerce Query

Additional content from supplier to the products

Sometimes the supplier catalog has other product information that can be used as a starting point in the product enrichment process. Use the ImportProducts (for client products) instead, to add parametrics,, flags, images and texts. Handle this as an external content source and lookup your partno’s with query and call the import products.

Read about Products and Pricing Integrations.

Suggested further reading

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