EdgeAX Commerce Link Works seamlessly with any Ecommerce platform

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1 EdgeAX Commerce Link Works seamlessly with any Ecommerce platform Quickly achieve total integration of your existing omni-channel e-commerce platform with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations (AX) EdgeAX CommerceLink is a smart integration solution between your Microsoft Dynamics D365 for Operations ERP system and the e-commerce system of your choice. It places no constraints on either system, smartly cross-referencing unique identifiers, products, attributes, promotions and orders. It provides scheduled batch jobs as well as real-time web services. Your customers expect retail excellence, no matter how they engage your brand. They might want to browse your online catalog and check stock levels at a nearby retail outlet, and then make their purchase en route from their smartphone. They value the ability to return products at any retail location, regardless of the way they were purchased. They want a personalized shopping experience that remembers their preferences and adapts to their tastes. In other words, customers expect today's retailers to deliver a complete omni-channel experience, and these factors influence where and how frequently they shop. True omni-channel retail requires a unified view of your entire retail operation, spanning across all physical and online sales channels. Your customer must be given the same experience on their smartphone, their computer, and in-store, with complete access to your product catalog. Order fulfilment options and product availability must be consistent across channels. Customer service and support must also cut across all channels; your information technology infrastructure must empower your representatives to assist customers with the same level of excellence, irrespective of how or where they buy your products. Unified Platform: Achieve growth through e- commerce and ERP synergy Many online retailers have adopted Microsoft Dynamics as their preferred ERP platform, recognizing the clear advantages offered by its power and versatility. As a high-performance, scalable, and secure enterprise solution, it is ideal for storing, processing, and producing reports and analyses on customer, product, and sales information.

2 On the other hand, enterprise-level e-commerce platforms like Magento, Sales Force Commerce Cloud, and others are robust, well-supported, and highly configurable technologies for online retail, with undeniable advantages of their own. Many retailers that use Dynamics for ERP also rely on one or more of these e-commerce solutions as their online storefronts. However, without bringing information from these two technologies together, many businesses barely scratch the surface of their combined potential. To maximize ROI and take full advantage of existing e-commerce investments, Visionet Systems has developed CommerceLink, a pre-built integration solution that automatically synchronizes many popular e-commerce platforms, including Magento, and Sales Force Commerce Cloud, with Microsoft Dynamics R3 2012, Dynamics AX7, and Dynamics 365. Designed to address the needs of omni-channel retailers with extensive e-commerce implementations, CommerceLink is more cost-effective, as well as quicker and easier to implement, than opting for custom in-house development or premium Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) services. By seamlessly and securely synchronizing your existing e-commerce solution with Dynamics AX, CommerceLink eliminates the need for error-prone, time-consuming manual transcription between platforms, and creates a unified system for centralized channel management. Core Benefits: Efficient order management. Single-view simplicity. When a customer places an order online, the order fulfilment and tracking information is processed and stored in Dynamics AX. Similarly, Dynamics AX pushes relevant information to your e-commerce platform as needed. CommerceLink acts as a conduit that seamlessly and securely integrates both platforms, and can be configured to keep information synchronized in real time as direct calls between platforms, or through a series of batch transfers in secure data formats at regular intervals. This omni-integration results in streamlined operational performance. Total integration of ERP and e-commerce functionality has many key advantages: View all customer, product, inventory, and order information in a single location for advanced forecasting and analytics. Gain insights into customer buying behavior, make personalized recommendations, and maximize customer satisfaction. Centralize, streamline and automate complex supply chain processes like order fulfilment, shipping, payment, and item refunds. Improve product information and optimize inventory and warehouse management. Centrally manage all retail channels, including catalogs, pricing, and promotions for an improved bottom line.

3 Business Benefits With this integration, retailers are able to centrally manage channel and catalogue to streamline and automate complex business process: order fulfillment, shipping and payment etc. by transferring data between Dynamics 365 and ecommerce systems in real time. When a customer places an order online, the fulfillment and order tracking process directly in Dynamics 365 thereby, reducing dependency on factors limiting growth. This allows business to focus on other growth opportunities like acquiring new customers, serving new markets and increasing opportunities. Operational Benefits It eliminates the need for manual data entry processes to sync information between two systems. With integration, Retailers reduce their dependency on these manual processes to reduced cost and improved efficiency. It also enables businesses to better manage their inventory and product information. As with e-commerce and Dynamics ERP integration, they have to maintain this information in only one system and any updates are automatically synced to the other and automating the return process - inventory update and refunds. Informed Decision Making This integration helps retailers see all their data (customer, product, inventory, order etc.) at a single location while the same information is also present in other systems, which enables them to run advanced analytics. This reporting leads to benefits like improved forecasting; better understanding of customers and data backed marketing efforts. While integration only syncs information between these systems, EdgeAX CommerceLink for Dynamics 365 enables your business to provide your customers with great customer experience consistently across all channels. It also enables you to capture a 360-degree customer view of their business, all at one place.

4 Edge AX commerce link acts as a bridge between e-commerce storefront and back office ERP application. It facilitates the data flow between ERP and e-commerce application and helps in centralizing the information in right place to help decision making and analysis. Data Flows Standard implementation of data flows for Inventory/Pricing/Price book Standard implementation of data flows for Site Catalog

5 Standard implementation of data flows for Master Catalog Over 100 Configuration and Tailoring Parameters With over 100 configurable parameters, you focus on your best online sales model and your best ERP management practices without compromises. Whether you have master products or not, or whether you want to post shipping charges as regular charges, there is no need for customization. It is all configurable. Sample configuration parameters Parameter Local_Base_Path Remote_Base_Path Default_Culture Channel_Id TimeStamp_Difference ERP_Default_Customer_Group ERP_Customer_Default_TaxGroup ERP_Default_Address_Type ZipCode_Truncate_Enable Retail_Media_Path Default_Currency_Code ERP_Default_GiftCard_Delivery_Mode Is_Flat_Product_Hierarchy Description

6 Tax_As_Charges Custom Extensions Provides custom extension for unique omni-channels. Following is the customization to accommodate customer's implementation. Technical Overview EdgeAX CommerceLink runs as four services: 1. Sync Service : This Windows Service runs a scheduler that runs the data synchronization jobs that transfer data between ERP and the CommerceLink machine. 2. File Service : This Windows Service runs a scheduler that moves files generated by asynchronous jobs between systems. 3. Integration DB : This can be run on Microsoft SQL Server or Azure SQL. 4. Web Services : These are REST-ful Web services that allow the real-time getting and posting of data In addition to these components, there are custom Dynamics 365 Retail Server extensions that are deployed on the Retail Server Web application on the AX server. Once installed, tailoring is done through a thick client UI that can override default parameters by storing the overridden values in the Integration DB. Other items that can be customized in the Integration Database are templates and transformation templates. File system logging is enabled with two logs output on the CommerceLink machine: a regular log set by default to the INFO level, and a debug log set to the DEBUG level. All WARN and FATAL errors are also logged to the Integration Database. Certain events are also logged to the Windows Event Log and visible through the Windows Event Viewer. Jobs can be turned on and off, and their schedule changed through the Integration Database. The File Service can transfer files to remote systems via FTP, SFTP and Windows file copy. Azure BLOB storage is also available as an added-on feature.

7 Glossary Term AOS CRT RTS SFTP Definition Application Object Server Commerce Run time Real Time Services Secure File Transfer Protocol