Synchronizing Customers: To Perform Bidirectional Synchronization

The following activity will walk you through the process of setting up the bidirectional synchronization of customers and performing the synchronization of customers between MYOB Advanced and the BigCommerce store.

Story

Suppose that the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company has multiple corporate customers from the United States and Canada in the system. The company management wants customer records for US customers to be exported from MYOB Advanced to the BigCommerce store. At the same time, new customers that place orders in the BigCommerce store should be imported to MYOB Advanced.

Because an email address is a key field for a customer in BigCommerce, customers that do not have it specified in MYOB Advanced will not be saved in the BigCommerce store during the export.

Acting as an implementation consultant helping SweetLife to set up the integration of MYOB Advanced with the BigCommerce store, you need to configure the bidirectional synchronization of customers, and configure the filtering conditions to export only records for US customers that have an email specified.

Configuration Overview

In the U100 dataset, the following tasks have been performed for the purposes of this activity:

• On the Customer Classes (AR201000) form, the COMMERCEBB and ECCUSTOMER customer classes have been configured. The COMMERCEBB customer class is assigned to local (US) customers that need to be exported to the external system.
• On the Customers (AR303000) form, the following customer records have been created and assigned the COMMERCEBB customer class:
  • FRUITICO: On the General tab, notice that no details have been specified in the boxes of the Primary Contact section. In the Additional Account Info section, the account's email address and phone number have been specified.
  • JAMIFIQUE: On the General tab, notice that in the Primary Contact section, the name of the contact (Colleen Plunkett) has been filled in. In the Additional Account Info section, the account's email address and phone number have been specified.
• On the Numbering Sequences (CS201010) form, the ECCUSTOMER numbering sequence has been defined.

Process Overview

In this activity, you will perform the following steps:

1. On the BigCommerce Stores (BC201000) form, review the settings of the Customer entity.
2. On the Entities (BC202000) form, configure the filtering condition for the export of customers from MYOB Advanced to the BigCommerce store.
3. On the Prepare Data (BC501000) form, start the data preparation process for the Customer entity to prepare out-of-sync data for export.
4. On the Process Data (BC501500) form, start data processing for the Customer entity to save the synchronized customer data in the BigCommerce store.
5. On the Sync History (BC301000) form, review the synchronization status of the processed synchronization records.
6. In the BigCommerce store, review the customers that have been imported from MYOB Advanced.

System Preparation

Before you complete the instructions in this activity, do the following:

1. Make sure that the following prerequisites have been met:
   • The BigCommerce store has been created and configured, as described in Initial Configuration: To Set Up a BigCommerce Store.
   • The connection to the BigCommerce store has been established and the initial configuration has been performed, as described in Initial Configuration: To Establish and Configure the Store Connection.
2. Launch the MYOB Advanced website with the U100 dataset preloaded, and sign in with the following credentials:
   • Username: gibbs
   • Password: 123
3. Sign in to the control panel of the BigCommerce store as the store administrator.

Step 1: Reviewing the Synchronization Settings of the Customer Entity

To review the synchronization settings of the Customer entity, do the following:

1. Open the BigCommerce Stores (BC201000) form.
2. In the Store Name box, select SweetStore - BC.
3. On the Entity Settings tab, in the row with the Customer entity, make sure that the following settings have been specified:
   • Active Selected
   • Sync Direction: Bidirectional
   • Primary System: External System
4. On the Customer Settings tab, make sure that the following settings have been specified:
   • Customer Class: ECCUSTOMER

     When a new customer is imported from the BigCommerce store to MYOB Advanced, its default settings will be defined based on the customer class selected in this box.

   • Customer Auto-Numbering: ECCUSTOMER

     Each new customer imported from the BigCommerce store will be assigned an identifier based on the numbering sequence selected in this box.

5. If you have changed any of the settings, click Save on the form toolbar to save your changes.

Step 2: Configuring the Filtering Condition

To configure the export of only customer records that are assigned to the COMMERCEBB customer class, do the following:

1. Open the Entities (BC2020PL) form.
2. In the Store Name box of the Selection area, select SweetStore - BC.
3. In the Entity column of the table, click the Customer link.

   The system opens the Entities (BC202000) form with the SweetStore - BC store and the Customer entity selected in the Summary area.

4. To create a first filtering condition, on the Export Filtering tab, click Add Row on the table toolbar, and specify the following settings in the row:
   • Active: Selected
   • Field Name: Customer Class
   • Condition: Equals
   • Value: COMMERCEBB
5. To create a second filtering condition, and another row and specify the following settings in the row:
   • Active: Selected
   • Field Name: Email
   • Condition: Is Not Empty
6. On the form toolbar, click Save to save your changes.

   Now when you prepare the Customer entity for synchronization and process the prepared customer data, only the customers that have the COMMERCEBB customer class and an email address specified will be exported to the SweetStore - BC store.

Step 3: Preparing the Customer Data for Synchronization

To prepare the customer data for synchronization, do the following:

1. Open the Prepare Data (BC501000) form.
2. In the Summary area, specify the following settings:
   • Store: SweetStore - BC
   • Prepare Mode: Incremental
3. In the table, select the Selected check box in the row of the Customer entity, and on the form toolbar, click Prepare.
4. In the Processing dialog box, which opens, review the results of the processing, and click Close to close the dialog box and return to the Prepare Data form.

   Notice that the Prepared Records column shows the number of synchronization records that have been prepared and are ready to be processed.

Step 4: Processing the Prepared Customer Data

To process the customer data you have prepared for synchronization, do the following:

1. While you are still viewing the Prepare Data (BC501000) form, click the link in the Ready to Process column of the row with the Customer entity.

   The Process Data (BC501500) form opens with the SweetStore - BC store and the Customer entity selected in the Summary area. The table displays all synchronization records of the Customer entity that the system has prepared in the previous step.

2. On the form toolbar, click Process All to process both synchronization records displayed in the table.
3. In the Processing dialog box, which opens, click Close to close the dialog box.

Step 5: Reviewing the Synchronization Status

To review the synchronization status of the synchronization records that you processed in the previous step, do the following:

1. Open the Sync History (BC301000) form.
2. In the Summary area of the form, specify the following settings:
   • Store: SweetStore - BC
   • Entity: Customer
3. Go to the Processed tab.

   The tab shows the items that have been synchronized with the SweetStore - BC store (see the following screenshot). For each customer of the COMMERCEBB customer class that you processed, the system displays an identifier in the External ID column. In the table, the Last Operation column is set to Inserted Externally and the time stamp in the Last Attempt column now shows the date and time when you ran data processing on the Process Data (BC501500) form.

   
   
   

Step 6: Viewing Exported Customer Records

To view the FRUITICO and JAMIFIQUE customers (which have been synchronized in the previous steps of this activity) in the BigCommerce store, do the following:

1. While you are still viewing the Sync History (BC301000) form, locate the row with JAMIFIQUE, Jamifique factory in the ERP ID column, and click the link in the External ID column of that row.

   The Edit Customer page of the control panel of the BigCommerce store opens for Colleen Plunkett, who is the primary contact of the JAMIFIQUE customer.

   Attention: If you are not signed in to the control panel of the BigCommerce store in the same browser, you will need to enter your sign-in credentials.

   Notice that the details that have been filled in for the customer based on the information from the General tab of the Customers (AR303000) form. The name from the Primary Contact section has been imported as the customer's first name and last name. The Email Address and Phone Number boxes have been filled in with the email address and the phone number from the Additional Account Info section of the same tab.

2. Go to the Customer Address Book tab.

   Notice that no addresses have been added for the customer. Because the Customer Location entity was not activated on the Entity Settings tab of the BigCommerce Stores (BC201000) form, the location information has not been imported to the BigCommerce store for this customer and other customers synchronized in the previous steps of this activity.

3. In the left pane, click Customers > View.
4. On the View Customers page, which opens, review the list of customers that have been exported.

   Because you have configured the filtering condition so that the system exports from MYOB Advanced only the customers of the COMMERCEBB customer class, only the customers of that customer class and the customers created directly in the BigCommerce store are displayed on the View Customers page.

5. Click the row of Fruitico Coffee and Cakes.

   The Edit Customer page opens. Because the Name box of the Primary Contact section was empty for this customer on the Customers (AR303000) form, the First Name and Last Name boxes have been filled in with the information from the Account Name box of the Account Info section on the Customers form.